Iowa Weather Report January 10th 2014 – Iowa Weather Network Archives

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MESSY AHEAD: A system will be coming up from the south and southwest today bringing with it some rain, freezing rain and snow across the area. The southeastern third of the state may see all rain after a few hours of seeing a wintry mix, while the northwestern third is likely going to see all snow with this system. In the middle will be where the wintry mix of rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow is likely to occur all day. This may cause some travel issues especially on untreated roads. Be sure to take your time to get to your destination. As the colder air comes in later tonight into Saturday, the precipitation will switch over to all snow before ending. We could see some accumulations of at least an inch or two across all but areas south of Interstate 80. The heaviest precipitation will likely be across Missouri and Illinois precluding any possible heavy ice and or snow accumulations around here. Temperatures will be key to what type of precipitation we may receive. Readings will be in the 30s today, with lower 30s in the northern and northwestern counties and middle to upper 30s elsewhere. There isn’t much colder air behind the system as temperatures on Saturday will still range from the upper 20s to the middle 30s across the area.

QUICK FLOW: Above seasonal readings look to continue to Sunday before another system comes in late Sunday night into early Monday with a little flurry activity possible. This will drop the readings back to near seasonal levels in the 20s to near 30 on Monday. Another disturbance late Monday afternoon lasting through Tuesday morning especially in the northeastern counties could bring some light snow around as well. Any accumulations are expected to be light at this time. Another warmer than average day on Wednesday will be followed by another cold push from the north on Thursday with some light snow or flurries mainly confined to the northeastern quarter of the state.

LOOKING TOWARD THE EXTENDED: Looking forward in time, the GFS shows some warming heading into the weekend of the 18th and 19th. This “warm” weather looks to last through most of the period with some cool downs here and there along with some systems, one on the 20th, another on the 22nd into the 23rd and one at the end of the forecast on the 25th. Confidence isn’t very high as yet as there are model differences between the other models, so we’ll have to wait and see over the next few days what becomes of them.