Des Moines, IA weather
Today 72° / 61°
Today's Forecast
Rain showers likely. Mostly cloudy. High near 72, with temperatures falling to around 66 in the afternoon. North wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.
7-Day Outlook
Data from the National Weather Service
Last updated Tue, Sep 15, 4:56 PM UTC
Active alerts for Des Moines
- Flood Warning
Dallas, IA; Polk, IA
- Flood Warning
Polk, IA
Relayed from the National Weather Service. See every active warning. For anything affecting your safety, use weather.gov.
Winter in Des Moines
Des Moines averages 37 inches of snow a year, according to NOAA’s 1991–2020 climate normals - a regular snow place. Snow several times a winter, well-practised response. Closures happen but need a real storm.
That is why local snowfall thresholds differ so much from one town to the next: a district that plans for 37 inches a year is equipped differently from one that never sees any. Here, roughly 6 inches in a single storm is where a normal school day comes under threat.
Upper air over Des Moines
The nearest radiosonde launch is Omaha, about 143 miles away. A weather balloon goes up twice a day and measures temperature, humidity and wind all the way through the atmosphere - which is what forecasters actually read to judge whether storms will fire, and how a surface forecast was arrived at.