• in 1851 Iowa may have experienced floods of a magnitude similiar to those of 1993, but the inadequacy of historic records makes comparison of the two years impossible.

• the 1993 summer floods followed a prolonged period of cool, wet, cloudy weather which greatly decreased evaporation of soil moisture and set lake and river levels climbing months before severe flooding began.

• some towns, such as Chelsea (Tama County), were flooded as many as five times as 1993.

• virtually all of Iowa's maximum precipitation records were broken in 1993.

• from November 1, 1992, through August, 1993, 47.50 inches of precipitation fell across Iowa, an amazing 20.75 inches more than normal and nearly 12 inches above the previous record.

• from May to September if this last year, only 13 days escaped measurable rainfall somewhere in Iowa.

• the June, 1991, explosion of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines may have contributed significantly to the 1993 weather anomalies: the millions of tons of atmospheric ash would have decreased sunlight and favored prolonged "global cooling", and in the process reduced evaporation of moisture from the soil.

• the cool, wet weather in the Midwest was coupled with unusual weather patterns elsewhere in the country: a serious drought in the Southeast, a major heat wave along the East Coast, an unusually cold summer in the western mountains.

• this past summer, the Midwest lay at the boundary of a stationary "dome" of high pressure over the southeastern U.S. and a strong, stationary low pressure system over the Nortern Rockies, and that our widespread, severe thunderstorms were generated by the clashing of air masses at this boundry.

• Iowa's first autumn freeze dates have moved steadily earlier for the past 50 years, and now on the average come ten days before they did in the 1930s and 1940s.

• even if precipitation decreases, Iowa will remain vulnerable to moisture-related problems (such as flooding) for a very long time because of the state's wet soils, high water table, resulting high river flows, and high lake levels.