Anyone feel anything different this morning? If you waited until today to shovel out your drive way, don’t worry you will! Especially if you have to do it by hand. Many are still shoveling out from a major snowstorm that hit over the weekend. The storm impacted an area from Nebraska all the way to the east coast. Here in south central Iowa anywhere from one foot to 14 inches of snow has fallen which brought travel stand still. Some schools and roads are still closed this morning despite sunny conditions now in place just because of the sheer high amounts of snow that overloaded snow plows. Here in Cumming just SW of Des Moines we got 12″ right on the dot. The snow had a water content of 1 inch and before the snow started we got 0.21″ of rain, so some much-needed precipitation has been received. Just imagine what the totals would have been had it been all snow! So where are we at in terms of snow this season? This snowstorm by far proceeded any snow I’ve received so far this winter, in fact it doubled the season snowfall from 12 to 24 inches. We are now very close to our seasonal average of around 30 inches typically seen.

This was a pretty high impact storm because the temperatures were between 33 and 34.F in this area which caused the snow to be wet and heavy, sticking to tree branches. The weight of the snow caused tree branches to break and even some full-sized trees to fall over. There were a few 5-6″ tree limbs down in my neighborhood, but damage was worsened in wind protected cities and wooded areas. Falling tree branches took out power from a few hundred to over a thousand people at one point around Metro Des Moines. There were just as many to if not more power outages in other metropolitan areas across the region from Omaha and Cedar Rapids over to Davenport as well and likely beyond.

 

 

Winter may not be the favorite season of many, but I will admit the snow this afternoon against the blues skies and strong February sun is beautiful! What also made this storm interesting is the warm weather that was around for weeks before the storm. Or maybe that was just a little karma! It used to be downright spring like before the storm, its been in the 40s and 50s for a week before the storm and this morning it was -7.F! Last week my spring bulbs were starting to peek through the thawed soil and now everything is covered in a thick blanket of snow, but I find this a great thing because this will protect everything from the cold that has followed this storm.

 

I would like to end this summary with a shot of the satellite image from this morning, which clearly shows how a large area was effected by this storm over the middle part of the country. The darker areas that appear like veins are tree filled river valleys. So now many are wondering when is it going to warm back up? Now we do have a chance of snow on Wednesday, but the weekend looks like it will be near 40.F for a few days!

 

Across central and south central Iowa the highest amounts that were around 14″ were centralized from Madrid and Johnston in the Des Moines area eastward to Newton and Gliman. Central Iowa actually has some of highest snowfall totals in the state. For a complete list of statewide snowfall reports please click here