Iowa Weather Report December 12th 2013 – Iowa Weather Network Archives

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WARMER: Temperatures will be a bit warmer over the next few days with readings in the 20s across the state. This is still below seasonal average for this time of year, but it’s better than what we’ve been seeing over the last few days. It will be mainly sunny today with a noticeable increase in clouds Friday ahead of a storm that will skirt the state to the south and southeast. This will bring some light snow or flurries to the area late Friday into Saturday morning. As of right now, any accumulations will be less than 2 inches and confined to mainly the southeastern counties of the state. It will slightly cooler on Saturday with moderation heading into Sunday.

NEXT WEEK: Monday will see mainly sunny skies and near seasonal level temperatures, however a new push of colder air will move in late Monday night into Tuesday as a quick moving system passes by to our north. Our only effects will be much colder air on Tuesday into Wednesday with readings dropping back into the teens to lower 20s and lows will be in the single digits again. Temperatures on Thursday will be boosted by southwest winds ahead of the next surge of cold air at the end of next week. This will also bring another bout of some snow next Friday across the area along with strong north to northwesterly winds that could bring near white out conditions; however this could still change however.

THROUGH CHRISTMAS: The rest of the extended period shows bitter cold with continued shots of snow as well. The best chances of seeing some snow look to be, at least from this model run, the 22nd, Christmas eve into Christmas day (which is the most significant) and the 27th. These are all followed by more cold air coming in from the Arctic. There have been some models that have indicated that we could see temperatures that we haven’t seen in the area for many years. Yesterday, the Canadian GEM Model showed that readings on the morning of the 21st (which is right after the snow at the end of next week) would drop into the 25 to 40 below zero range. If that would be true, it would be the coldest temperatures we’ve seen since the 1996 cold snap when the state record was tied at Elkader with -47°. The models have continued to hint at bitter cold for the Christmas season and this run is no exception. It’s how bad the cold will be is still up in the air at this point.