Downtown Marion December 14th 2013

Today was a nice day to go out and about and take some photos of the areas decorations in anticipation for the Christmas season. Here in Marion, the trees are lit up at night and there is Christmas music in the park playing during the day. Today, like the past couple have days have been sunny with clouds and a few flurries at times, but highs have been much more bearable in the middle to upper 20s compared from where they were last week in the teens and single digits. Sunday will feature 1 more cold arctic day for Eastern Iowa until we get a nice break from the cold next week when we’ll have several days with highs in the upper 30s and even lower 40s, Tuesday through Thursday, however it will be short lived as another arctic air mass will come down for next weekend.

Downtown Cedar Rapids December 14th 2013

 Snowcover around the area is still plentiful, as seen here in Downtown Cedar Rapids along the Cedar River, however it seems like the past few days it has been compacting and even melting slightly especially on southern/western slopes I really noticed it driving along 380 through the city. It appears as though we may add a little bit of snow tomorrow night as a clipper system slides through Eastern Iowa. Right now 0.50 maybe an inch is possible, but it surely doesn’t look like much. It will be interesting to see how much of this stays on the ground next week and if we’ll have a good solid white Christmas.

North Center Point Road, Hiawatha December 14th

I really like the snowflake decorations Hiawatha has put up, and the snow on the ground matches perfectly!