3 Iowa Towns I Learned To Pronounce Because Of Friday's Storms

Nothing quite like severe weather to help you learn a state's town names.

It's been a little over a year since I moved to the Quad Cities from Arkansas. When I moved here, I had literally no lay of the land for either Iowa or Illinois and I'm still getting my bearings as far as what town is located where.

Friday's storms and tornadoes were absolutely awful but there were some moments I was watching KWQC's Erik Maitland call a town name and just thought "wait what?"

I learned geography in Arkansas the same way as a kid since tornadoes happen all spring and summer there. Arkansas is excellent about misleading spellings of town names.

The Town Name Pronunciations That Threw Me Off

In order of least to most baffling, here are the towns from Friday's severe weather coverage that took me a second.

Keota

This was a bit of sounding out and then wondering if I was saying it right even then.

Delhi

Is it Dell-hee? Dell-high? With that spelling, it could go either way.

And Finally...Charlotte

This one got me. There's a Charlotte, Arkansas too but it's said like the female name is pronounced. I'd literally never considered an alternative pronunciation to Charlotte until, well, now.

Of course, we're all hoping for and ready to help with recovery efforts for all who sustained damage from the tornadoes.

Are there any other weird Iowa town names that aren't pronounced like they're spelled? Let me know in the app chat!