Iowa Weather Report December 31st 2014: Weekend Storm To Watch

SLOWLY WARMING: It will be another cold day across the state today with readings mainly in the teens and lower 20s. There will be plenty of sunshine around both today and on New Year’s Day across the state. Friday will be virtually the same as today and Thursday with partly to mostly sunny skies with readings in the 20s to lower 30s across the area.

WEEKEND STORM: The next system will be coming up from the southwest on Saturday and may linger into the first half of Sunday. This looks to bring some decent snows to the state. It will also bring some strong winds late Saturday night through the day on Sunday that may cause some travel issues with blowing snow. It’s still too early to determine actual snow amounts at this time, however it does look like the southern and southeastern counties of the state will see the heaviest totals. This may change in the coming days as it is not set in stone quite yet. Readings on Sunday will tumble as cold arctic air will follow in the wake of this system as it departs to the northeast.

NEXT SYSTEM: Another system will move into the state Monday afternoon through the first half of Tuesday bringing with it a chance of some snow to the area. Like the previous system, it’s too early to determine snowfall amounts but given the lack of moisture with this system, amounts look to be light at this time, but this is subject to change. This looks to be followed by another shot of colder air as we head into the middle of next week.

LOOKING BEYOND: As we look into the extended period which takes us into the middle of January, this model run shows that the weather pattern will be a bit more active, however most of the activity looks to miss the state to the south. Readings look to average near seasonal levels for the first part of the month with some days warmer than others. Confidence in this is not high as we’ve seen everything from cold arctic outbreaks, to numerous storm systems to a few warmer spells over the last few days. We’ll have to wait for any trends before getting any confidence past seven days at this point.