Iowa Weather Report May 2nd 2013 – Iowa Weather Network Archives

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg5xtsxsgzU&w=480&h=360]

DAZED AND CONFUSED: May came in like a lion, oh wait that’s March. It sure looks like a winter wonderland across portions of Iowa, nope it’s supposed to be mid-Spring. However Mother Nature gave us a dose of winter once again with some snow and wintry precipitation across the northwestern counties of the state on Wednesday. This looks to continue today as well as the colder air seeps farther east across the state. It will depend on where the rain snow line stops before retreating back west Friday as to how far east the wintry precipitation will go. Current thinking is that the rain/snow line should get as far as a Decorah to Cedar Rapids to Ottumwa line late tonight before quickly moving back west during the day Friday as the cold core low moves to our south. That doesn’t mean the precipitation is going to end. There is still a chance of rain through at least Sunday as the upper level system slowly makes its way across OK, AR into the TN Valley by late Sunday. It’s hard to take a stab at accumulations when we’re talking the first few days of may and snow? But most of the snow if it falls (and has fallen) will melt, unless you get a heavy burst of snow that will overpower the warm ground temperatures and stick to everything. You may get 6″ of snow but only an inch or two is on the ground due to compaction and melting due to the warm ground temperatures. A few model runs have been showing outlandish snow fall accumulations through Friday with this system, which seemed totally absurd until reports of 4-6″ came in last night from NW Iowa. According to the 00z NAM, it had a band of 12″+ across central Iowa into SE Minnesota (yes that’s absurd!), WPC has the probability of 12″ of snow (according to their 00z Release last night ) across WC into NC Iowa at 40-60%! (absurd!). You have to start to wonder if this was to be right, it would be the biggest snow ever in May in Iowa, it would be the biggest snow this season, and one of the biggest oddities to occur in Iowa in many a year. Luckily for us all, this snow won’t last, the low moves away with the rain becoming more widely scattered on Sunday and by Monday skies should be partly to mostly sunny and temperatures will be back into the 60s to near 70.

MAY WE HAVE SPRING?: Typical spring weather looks to return with some active weather around the 9th-11th with some showers and thunderstorms possible at that time. Seasonal readings will have returned as well with 70s likely during that time. Another storm around the 16th as well with continued seasonal readings but this may change for all we know.