Origins
State Meteorologist Elwynn Taylor of Iowa State University said that the wet spring of 2008 was traceable to relatively warm and wet air over the winter. Taylor explained:
"Fog in the winter is normally the result of a strong flow of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, which normally does not occur in the winter," he said. "Usually that occurs in March and April. It's caused by either low pressure over New Mexico or high pressure over Bermuda. Both are common in the summer. Both are rare in the winter. More than 80 percent of moisture that falls in the Midwest is from the Gulf of Mexico, and the primary cause of it coming here is the Bermuda high pressure. The pressure arrived very early and much stronger than usual by April and May this year. And it was the case in 1993."
Taylor was quoted at length in the article, concluding: "Rule of thumb is, if a storm begins in the Texas panhandle, it will come to Iowa. The conditions that allow a storm to develop there are the conditions that move the storm to Iowa."
The 2007-2008 winter was particularly severe in the northeastern portion of the state, with a heavy snow cover that persisted in many areas until early spring rains. From the last week in April, the state experienced heavy rain, particularly in the form of thunderstorms, which saturated the soils. It was an extension of the Late-May 2008 tornado outbreak sequence, which aside from record-setting tornadoes, also brought huge quantities of rain in the form of stalled thunderstorm systems.
Another possible, but debated, contributing factor was the extensive field tilling in Iowa. Almost 40% of agricultural fields in Iowa are tilled, which allows water to flow more quickly from fields into waterways, possibly causing water levels to rise faster.
Read more about this topic: Iowa Flood Of 2008
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