It wasn’t a White Christmas, but it was an unusual one, according to the National Weather Service.

Rod Donovan, meteorologist with the National Weather Service Des Moines, said that temperatures climbed near 40 degrees on Christmas Day, then an inch of rain or more fell in places the following day – both of which are uncommon this time of year.

“Getting pretty heavy rain in late December…that’s certainly fairly uncommon,” he said.

He added that typically in the winter months, rain transitions into snow as temperatures dropped but prolonged warm weather allowed rain to continue to fall.

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