From NWS
1999: A heat wave sent the temperature at Keosauqua all the way up to 107 F and dewpoints in the lower 80s were common, with the highest officially observed dewpoint of 84 F occurring at Ames in the evening. Many areas experienced heat index values in excess of 110 F with the highest heat index occurring at Burlington where the reading was 126 F. The month would end as the hottest in Iowa since August of 1983.

1804: Captain Meriwether Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition, while traveling along the Missouri River on the present western border of Iowa, recorded in his journal that the expedition “passed much falling timber apparently the ravages of a Dreddfull harican which had passed oblequely across the river from N.W. to S.E. about twelve months Sinc, many trees were broken off near the ground the trunks of which were sound and four feet in Diameter”. This may be the first recorded tornado damage in Iowa history.

29 July 1916 → Lightning ignited a forest fire that burned down the towns of Cochrane and Matheson, Ontario killing 233 people. 29 July 1981 → Lightning struck a tree then spread across the ground near Vance, NC. The lightning strike killed 50 cows weighing around 800 pounds each. 29 July 2005 → A hike up Mount Whitney in California turned deadly when the tarp belonging to camping Boy Scouts was struck by lightning. A boy scout and the scout leader were killed.

Posted under Weather History