Ames, IA Weather Forecast
Story County, Iowa
Seven-day outlook
39–67°F across the weekThe week runs between 46° and 67°, with Sunday the warmest day of it. There is no real trend across it: one day looks much like the next. Monday is the wettest day, peaking near 82%.
Forecasts come from the National Weather Service's own computer models, and current conditions from the nearest reporting weather station. Both are served through the weather API. A forecast is guidance, not a warning, and anything the Weather Service has actually issued is on the live map.
The written summaries on this page are generated from the forecast data above, not by a meteorologist. Each sentence is a reading of the same numbers you can see, and no forecaster has reviewed them.
About the Ames forecast
Ames sits at 42.0263°N, 93.6213°W in Story County, Iowa. The forecast above is drawn for that point from the National Weather Service's own computer models: a seven-day outlook, and a finer-grained one covering the next eighteen hours where it reaches, and the radar and alert panels show what the Weather Service has out over the area right now.
- County
- Story County
- Coordinates
- 42.0263°N, 93.6213°W
- Population
- 65,686 · 2023 estimate
- Land area
- 28.204 sq mi
Place data from the US Census Bureau. Coordinates are the Census internal point for Ames, and the forecast is for that location, not for every address inside the city limits, and a large city can have real weather differences from one side to the other.
How well can the network see Ames?
The nearest Doppler radar is KDMX (Des Moines, IA), 21 miles to the SSW. A WSR-88D's lowest routine scan sits half a degree above horizontal, and the earth curves away beneath it, so by the time that beam reaches Ames its center is about 1,200 ft above ground. That is about as close as radar coverage gets in the United States: the lowest scan is still near the ground when it reaches Ames, so low-level rotation and the leading edge of a gust front show up on it. Ames is closer to its radar than 83% of US cities.
The closest instrument actually measuring the air is KAMW · Ames Muni on the ASOS/AWOS network, 2.5 miles away. Close enough that its readings are, for practical purposes, the conditions in town.
Beam height is the standard 4/3-earth approximation for the 0.5° scan and assumes normal refraction; it is where the center of the beam is, not its edges, and unusual temperature profiles bend it. Radar siting from the NWS WSR-88D network, station positions from the Iowa observing network as of this build.
Forecasts near Ames
- Nevada, IA8 mi
- Huxley, IA9 mi
- Story City, IA11 mi
- Boone, IA13 mi
- Madrid, IA15 mi
- Polk City, IA18 mi
- Ankeny, IA20 mi
- Johnston, IA24 mi
Elsewhere in Iowa
Des MoinesCedar RapidsDavenportSioux CityIowa CityAnkenyAll Iowa forecasts →