B-r-r-r! 2014 was a bone-chiller in Iowa

Iowa's coldest year in almost a century was at times numbing and at other times refreshing.

With 2014 having joined 141 other years in the Iowa record book, it ranks as the sixth coldest, and the coldest since 1917, State Climatologist Harry Hillaker said.

It was especially numbing in February and November, which ranked respectively as the seventh and fourth coldest of their respective months.

But it was especially pleasant in July, the state's fifth coolest July in 142 years, when high temperatures rarely reached 90 degrees.

The average temperatures in eight months of the year were below normal, and the year-round average temperature was 2.7 degrees below normal, Hillaker noted.

In the other four months, May and August were exactly normal, June was slightly warmer than normal and December was substantially warmer than normal, he said.

It was a year in which 'polar vortex' gained widespread currency as a description of the large pockets of frigid air that periodically descend southward into the United States.

People got so tired of the expression — both for its pretentiousness and its frequent use — that it made Lake Superior State University's annual list of words that should be banned for misuse, overuse or general uselessness.

It was a year that might have ranked even colder had November and December weather not been transposed.

The statewide average temperature in December, the 28th warmest on record, was 28.2 degrees — barely cooler than November's 29.1 degrees, which was 7.5 degrees colder than normal.

It was a year of moderate extremes, with the lowest temperature, 28 degrees below zero, recorded twice at Elkader and the highest temperature, 97 degrees, recorded May 7 at Clarinda, Shenandoah and Sidney.

It was the 15th wettest year on record with a statewide average precipitation of 39.61 inches — 4.34 inches above the 30-year average.

June, with a statewide average of 9.92 inches, was the third-wettest June on record and the fourth wettest calendar month.