Weather in Des Moines in October

A good month. October is a solid month to be in Des Moines. Highs average 17.3 °C, lows 5.4 °C, and rain falls on 8 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

October ranks 2 of 12 in Des Moines. Only September scores clearly higher, and the difference is small enough to be settled by price rather than weather.

Rain on 8 days, 2 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Pack for 17.3 °C days and 5.4 °C nights; the spread matters more here than any single number.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 5 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest October day reached 31.8 °C and the coldest night fell to -5.7 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 51 mm — roughly 72% of the month's rain in one day.

October is moderately variable: 16 mm in the driest year against 151 mm in the wettest, around an average of 71 mm. Roughly two Octobers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 11.4 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 71%.

How October sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 8.3 °C cooler than September, with November dropping another 7.7 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in October

11.2 hours of daylight, losing 1.3 hours across the month. That is between Des Moines's extremes of 15.2 and 9.2 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Des Moines has no sea to moderate it, and it shows: 40.3 °C separates the hottest afternoon of the year from the coldest night. That is a genuinely continental range, and it means summer and winter here are barely the same place.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

October in Des Moines versus nearby

If Des Moines is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Omaha is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days. Kansas City is close enough to be a coin toss — 2.2 °C warmer, 1 day more rain.

So: October is effectively as good as it gets here — 4 points behind September, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Des Moines

See all twelve months in Des Moines, or where else to go in October.