The Summer of 1936

Average statewide temperatures: July 14, 108.8; July 13, 107.1; Aug. 18, 106.4; July 15, 106.4; July 24, 106.1; July 17, 105.6; July 25, 102.9.

Seven of the hottest 10 days in Iowa history occurred in the summer of 1936. By June 15, the death toll in Iowa was 232. According to the National Weather Service, 5,000 deaths were associated with the heatwave nationally that summer.

"A large and persistent ridge of high pressure was set up over the western United States, which funneled anomalous heat into the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes," Justin Glisan, the State Climatologist of Iowa, told the Des Moines Register. "These conditions were compounded by the fact that a series of droughts impacted the United States during the early 1930s. With a lack of precipitation, crops and vegetation were killed, allowing the soil to bake during the unusually dry conditions.

"The lack of surface vegetation and soil moisture, combined with sub-standard land management, further exacerbated drought impacts, creating desert-like conditions. The Midwest was effectively a furnace."

The Great Depression roared throughout the nation, and the ongoing drought became more and more costly as Iowa and the rest of the country grappled with one of the bleakest decades in its history.

July 30-31, 1955

Average statewide temperatures: July 30, 101.8, and July 31, 101.4 and 100.1.

Two of 10 of the hottest days in Iowa history since 1950 occurred in July 1955. The Saturday of July 30, 1955, was the fourth 100-degree day in a row in Iowa that year. Sunday, July 31 ranks twice on the list of highest average temperatures since 1950, an odd feat that shows the brutality of the heat within that two-day span.

The Register published an hour-by-hour temperature gauge on the front page of the morning paper, clocking a 100-degree mercury reading at 3 p.m. the previous day, and warned Iowans that the heatwave would continue.

One farmhand in Polk County died of heatstroke and four people in Des Moines were sent to the hospital with heat-related health issues. Indianola residents were prohibited from watering their lawns.

Elsewhere in the world, Eisenhauer's Air Force Secretary Harold Talbott was about to resign. In Fonda, a town northwest of Fort Dodge, a bar manager died after a keg exploded.

August 1988

Average statewide temperatures: Aug. 17, 101.7; Aug. 15, 100.8; Aug. 1: 99.6.

Aug. 1, 15 and 17 rank as the seventh-, third- and second-hottest days in Iowa since 1950. The whole summer was one long heatwave and plagued by drought that slowed land prices and burnt crops. On Aug. 17, the Register reported the death of Stanley Brehm, a Burlington man, due to heatstroke. Temperatures rose past 100 throughout the state.

It was also an election year. The surprising news that George H.W. Bush had chosen one J. Danforth Quayle as his running mate broke during this devastatingly hot month. According to Register reporter David Yepsen, the reaction among Iowans was muted.

July 13, 1995

Average statewide temperature: 99.3

This Thursday in July 1995, seven years after the heatwave during the summer of 1988 and 40 years after the astoundingly hot summer of 1955, ranks as the seventh-hottest summer day in Iowa since 1950. No heatstroke deaths were reported, but more than 1,000 cattle perished in the backbreaking heat.

The heatwave in Iowa was part of a nation-wide heatwave that roiled the country. In other news, President Bill Clinton defended students' right to pray in public schools in an ongoing controversy that pitted him against the Republican Party.

July 23-24, 2012

Average statewide temperatures: July 24: 99, July 23: 98.6

These two days toward the end of July 2012 are recorded as the ninth- and 10th-hottest days in Iowa since 1950, but they barely made a dent in the Register's coverage that week. The state was preoccupied with another year of RAGBRAI as the nation reckoned with the Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting that left 12 people dead and 70 others injured.

Aaron Calvin covers trending news for the Register. Reach him at acalvin@registermedia.com or 515-556-9097.

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