ALL-STAR APPEARANCE Creston softball coach Mike McCabe and other area athletes took part in the Iowa Girls Coaches Association Senior All-Star Game Monday in Waukee, see SPORTS page 7A.
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The shoreline at Twelve Mile Lake is busy with activity as crews work to recover the body of a Creston man who drowned Monday evening.
CNA photo by JAKE WADDINGHAM
Creston man drowns in Twelve Mile Lake By KYLE WILSON and JAKE WADDINGHAM
CNA editors kwilson@crestonnews.com
The body of a Creston man — who drowned Monday evening at Twelve Mile Lake near Afton — was recovered by divers around 9:30 a.m. this morning. Neither the name or age of the man will be released until the man’s family has been notified. Mark Sedlmayer with the Department of Natural Resources said the body was found by divers on the southwest side of the lake below Sedlmayer about 15 feet of water. “This was a fast recovery,” Sedlmayer said,
“which is great because in these situations it’s all about bringing closure to family. This recovery was a cooperative effort from the divers and several state and local entities.” The man was reported missing 6:15 p.m. Monday when a fellow fisherman found an empty boat on the lake. Dive teams searched the water for the man until sundown Monday. The search continued 7:30 a.m. with assistance from Department of Natural Resources and Midwest Regional Dive team. They found the man’s fishing equimpment and other personal items. The Midwest Regional Dive team consists of the Red Oak and Clarinda fire departments, Cass and Ringgold County dive teams and Adams County emergency management. Sedlmayer said this is the first drowning on any major lake in Union County in 10 years.
Midwest Regional Dive team Ed Rotert of Mount Ayr said the Midwest Regional Dive Association is composed of teams from Red Oak, Clarinda, Mount Ayr, Cass County, Adams County and may be adding a team from the Carter Lake area soon. Each team brings a different component to the dive association, making the group an effective diving unit. Rotert said they also have regional training eight to 10 times a year. All divers are required to attend at least 50 percent of the training.
CNA photo by JAKE WADDINGHAM
Members of the Midwest Regional Dive team place flotation devices in Twelve Mile Lake as they prepare to search for a missing Creston man Tuesday morning. The body was recovered around 9:30 a.m. today.
Cool summer leading to cool fall? Species thought to be gone from Iowa found near Muscatine OTTUMWA (MCT) — By late July, the average daytime high temperature starts to drop. What is normally the hottest part of the year is over. Averages are still in the mid-80s, and it certainly wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to see days in even the upper 90s. But the chances of that happening drop by the day. July has seen only five days so far in which the high temperature was at or above normal. With only a couple days Hillaker left, it’s safe to say the month is going to come in below normal. “It’s certainly much cooler than usual,” said State Climatologist Harry Hillaker. What’s surprising here, according to Hillaker, is the persistence of the cool air. June wasn’t a shock, he said. It was rainy and daytime cloud cover helps hold down temperatures. July has had above normal rain
as well, but by a much smaller margin than June. Longer periods of sun have been punctuated by a day or two of heavy rains. In fact, more than 85 percent of this month’s rain has come on only three days. The cooler-than-usual summer is going to continue. Hillaker said the next two weeks look like they’ll stay cool. The Climate Prediction Center extends that forecast across the next three months, through October. While people have gotten very good at figuring out accurate forecasts for a week, or even two, three-month forecasts still stretch forecasters’ abilities. As Hillaker put it, “It’s hard to know in the longer term.” There’s another factor at work. September begins the meteorological fall, a transitional season. Those are tough times to make accurate predictions because the region is shifting from the summer heat to the winter’s chill. And weather doesn’t always behave the way we expect, even when we think we have good data. Earlier this year there was pretty high confidence
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the Pacific Ocean was shifting into an El Niño pattern. Iowa has about twoto-one odds of cool fall temperatures in the fall when El Niño arrives. But it hasn’t happened yet. “We keep trying to get into an El Niño pattern, but we’re not quite there,” Hillaker said. “There’s starting to be some doubt about whether we’re going to get there.” Still, this summer has been a welcome change for much of Iowa. The drought that gripped the state in the past two summers is gone, and cooler temperatures have generally kept down the humidity that can make summer so torturous. Iowa will most likely see a few more hot days; summer’s not over, after all. But the odds of a prolonged heat wave are starting to dwindle. —————— ©2014 the Ottumwa Courier (Ottumwa, Iowa) Visit the Ottumwa Courier (Ottumwa, Iowa) at www.ottumwacourier.com Distributed by MCT Information Services
Volume 131 No. 41
2014
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(MCT) — State fisheries personnel have found three examples of a longear sunfish, a species last documented in Iowa in 1932 and considered extirpated from the state. “It’s exciting. It’s a pretty big deal,” said Adam Thiese, the Department of Natural Resources fisheries technician who found the first one earlier this month at the Fairport Fish Hatchery on the Mississippi River near Muscatine. “For those who work in the fisheries field, both state and nationally, any time an uncommon species can be documented, it’s an exciting discovery,” he said. Thiese said DNR personnel were not certain that the first fish, believed to be a female, was a longear sunfish, and they are awaiting results of fin clip analysis to be sure. However, Thiese said biologists are positive that two Please see FISH, Page 2
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