Good morning, Cyclone Nation, and welcome to the Ames weather center. Here's your forecast. Today in central Iowa: crisp, golden and gorgeous, with cornfields finished and the Campanile looking like a postcard. Saturday night in Tucson, Arizona: warm, dry and seventy percent chance of loud, mostly from the visiting section. A Cyclone warning is in effect for the entire Sonoran Desert.
I'm Twyla Hemmingsen. I studied meteorology, I chase storms in the off-season, and I keep a tiny anemometer on my desk for emotional support. This week I owe you an honest two-week report, because we had a bye on Oct. 17, and then a full storm-spotter's briefing on our trip to the desert.
Part 1: The Fog in Provo, and a Week to Clear It
I'll start with the weather nobody wanted. Our last game was Friday, Oct. 9, at BYU, and we lost 24-10. I won't sugarcoat it, because a forecaster who lies is just a person with a map.
We finished with 200 yards of offense. AP said that was our lowest single-game output since 2018. We had 49 yards before halftime, our fewest since 2017, and we went three-and-out on three straight second-quarter drives. That's not a storm, friends. That's a dead calm. My anemometer didn't spin once.
Jaylen Raynor went 16 of 29 for 98 yards and a touchdown. Aiden Flora ran 17 times for 86 yards, though only 11 of those came before halftime. Linebacker Sullivan Schlimgen made 10 tackles, and he leads the team with 56 this season. Bless that young man. He was out there all night like a storm siren that never gets a break.
Now here's the bright spot on the radar. In the fourth quarter, Tiger Bachmeier fumbled a BYU punt, Torrence Sanders recovered at the BYU 49, and we drove for our only touchdown, a 1-yard pass from Raynor to Christian Greenlaw. We put up 131 yards and seven first downs on our three fourth-quarter drives. And our defense, give it credit, stopped BYU on fourth down three times, twice inside our 5. BYU, I'll note, is now the No. 2 team in the country.
Three and three is where we are, friends, not where we have to stay. That's a forecast I can get behind. Then came the bye: two weeks to fix the pass game, rest up and let the clouds clear.
Part 2: Into the Desert
Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Eastern, ESPN2. Iowa State (3-3) at No. 25 Arizona (5-1). It's our first trip to Tucson since 1966. Arizona leads the series 4-2-1, but I'd like to remind everyone, gently, that the most recent meeting was last season in Ames, and Iowa State won it 39-14. That was a 25-point storm system. Arizona is still sweeping up.
What's Rolling In From Ames
Our forecast starts on the ground. Iowa State runs for 181.5 yards a game, and Aiden Flora has 680 yards and six touchdowns on just 90 carries. That's 7.6 yards a carry, friends. That's not a running back. That's a gust front.
And here's my most beloved stat in the whole Cyclone almanac: Iowa State leads FBS in red zone offense. We've scored on every single trip inside the 20 this season. Every one. When we get close, the barometer drops and something happens.
Now the honest part. Our passing game ranks 118th in FBS at 178.2 yards a game, and we convert just 31% on third down, 127th. Raynor has 1,001 yards, seven touchdowns and four interceptions. We need the passing game to show up the way the wind shows up in Ames in March, which is to say all at once and with a lot of attitude.
On defense, defensive end Isaac Terrell leads us with three sacks. We allow 21.7 points a game, and we're plus-3 in turnover margin, 34th in the country.
What Tucson Is Bringing
I'll be fair first, because my grandma watches every forecast. Noah Fifita is very good. He has 1,756 yards, 16 touchdowns and four interceptions, and he's completing 73.3% of his throws. Arizona throws for 306.7 yards a game, 10th in FBS. Two weeks ago Isaiah Mizell caught six passes for 183 yards and two touchdowns in a 52-31 win at West Virginia.
Now let's look at the rest of the radar. In that same game, West Virginia outgained Arizona 522 to 482 and held the ball for 35:50. AP noted that West Virginia's defense had allowed an average of 593 yards in its two games before that. And Arizona still got outgained. Hmm. My barometer is raising an eyebrow.
Arizona is minus-3 in turnover margin, 99th in FBS. We're plus-3. So the Wildcats have a habit of letting the football slip away, and the Cyclones have a habit of catching whatever falls out of the sky. That's just science, friends. I took a whole class on precipitation.
And Arizona's pass defense allows 214.2 yards a game, 74th. If our passing game is ever going to find some sunshine, a desert seems like the right place to look.
A History Lesson From the Weather Center
Arizona's 5-1 start is its best since 2014. That's lovely. Truly. But think about what that sentence says: the Wildcats have been waiting 12 years for a nice start. In Ames, we get excited about a nice start every fall, and then we get excited about the next thing, too. We're optimists. It's the weather.
The Five-Day Town Forecast
Ames. Let me tell you about home. Ames sits about 30 miles north of Des Moines, and it's a college town in the best way. Our Campanile went up in 1897 and 1898 as a memorial to Margaret MacDonald Stanton, our first dean of women. It stands 110 feet tall, and it's the symbol of the whole university. Reiman Gardens fills 17 acres with an indoor butterfly wing. And on game days we gather at Jack Trice Stadium, which seats 61,500. It's named for Jack Trice, Iowa State's first African American athlete, who died in 1923 from injuries he suffered in a game against Minnesota. It is the only FBS stadium named for an African American. We say his name with pride every Saturday.
And the name? Iowa State became the Cyclones after a run of tornadoes, then called cyclones, tore through the area in 1898. We named ourselves after the most powerful weather on the plains. That's my kind of branding.
Tucson. Now, Tucson is a pretty place, and I won't pretend otherwise. Saguaros, mountains, very nice sunsets. But I'm a meteorologist, so I looked at the climate data. Tucson averages 158 days a year with a high of 90 degrees or more. A hundred and fifty-eight! That isn't a climate. That's an oven with a zip code.
Tucson also calls itself the "Old Pueblo." And it's the second-largest city in Arizona, behind Phoenix. So every day, Tucson wakes up in second place in its own state. I feel for it. It's like being the backup forecaster who only gets the 4 a.m. slot.
And Arizona plays in a stadium it renamed in 2025. I prefer stadium names that tell you a story. Ours tells you about Jack Trice. Our cardinal mascot, Cy, came about because a cyclone was too hard to put in a costume, which I think is charming. Arizona's mascots are Wildcats named Wilbur and Wilma. In Ames we'd call that a partly cloudy level of creativity.
One more thing. Bring water. I'm serious. It's the desert. Fall in Tucson is, per the record books, sunny and dry, with hot days. Out in Iowa we call that "July."
The Final Forecast
Here's your extended outlook. Arizona has the stronger passing game, and I'll admit that. Iowa State has the hottest running back on the field, a perfect red zone record, a plus turnover margin and two weeks of rest after an ugly night in Provo. If Flora gets going and Raynor hits a couple of passes on third down, this storm has a real chance to make landfall in the desert.
Pack a sweater for the flight home and sunscreen for kickoff. Seventy percent chance of loud, thirty percent chance of louder. Cyclone warning in effect.
My call: Arizona Wildcats 30, Iowa State Cyclones 21.