Iowa Weather Report January 8th 2015: More Arctic Chill Coming Down the Hill

MORE COLD AIR: Another clipper system will be moving through the state today. This system will be moisture starved but it will have enough to bring some snow shower activity to the northern and northeastern counties of the state. Most accumulations will be an inch or less. The main story with this system will be the strong gusty winds behind the system. This will bring blowing and drifting snow once again to the state. Some of the winds will be quite gusty and could approach ground blizzard conditions in parts of the state. High temperatures will be in the teens and 20s (above zero) before beginning to fall once again after the front moves through. Heading into the tonight skies will slowly clear from west to east as the clipper departs. Winds will still be gusty as lows head back into the single digits above and below zero. Wind chills will be down into the dangerous level once again. Friday doesn’t look to be warm at all with readings barely making it above zero for most of the state with partly to mostly sunny skies around. Lows Friday night will plummet into the single digits and teens below zero.

WEEKEND INTO NEXT WEEK: Temperatures this week will recover into the teens and 20s with lows in the single digits (some places may still see sub-zero readings). Skies during the weekend will be partly to mostly sunny. The GFS shows a system that will skirt the southern counties of the state late Sunday into the first of Monday with the chance of some light snow or flurries there. Any accumulation would be very light if at all. Temperatures look to head toward seasonal (or at least closer to seasonal) levels by the middle of next week.

LOOKING AHEAD: The GFS has been consistent with bringing in Pacific air toward the end of next week. It continues that trend with this run as well. It shows it lasting a few days with readings then settling back to near seasonal levels for mid-January. Other models have indicated that the arctic air would make a reappearance across the state at the same time. Until we get a better handle on which model will be correct on the solution, confidence past the 7-8 day time scale is low.