Iowa Weather Report February 16th 2015: Freezer Box

THE COLD WEEK AHEAD: The main story this week will be the below average temperatures that will dominate the area this week. There are a few chances of some light snow showers or flurries toward the end of the week but nothing at this point that looks to be of any significance. What may be incredibly sad is that the highs today will likely be the warmest we see at least until the weekend especially in the western counties. Highs will be in the 20s and 30s under mostly cloudy skies. Cloudy skies will also be the rule tonight as temperatures will only drop into the single digits and lower teens for lows. But another blast of Arctic air will only rebound the readings on Tuesday into the teens and lower 20s across the state. The far northern counties may not even get out of the single digits. Wednesday and Thursday could see readings in the single digits for a large portion of the state with the western counties likely seeing highs in the teens both days. Lows will be below zero for all but the western and southwestern counties of the state.

LOOKING FORWARD TO MARCH: As we look into the extended period, the cold temperatures look set to continue into the last week of February with another blast being forecast by this model around the 24th and 25th. This would be behind a system that could bring us some snow however with model run to run inconsistency, we can’t really time out any systems past the seven-eight day period at this point without seeing some trend over a couple of days. The cold temperature pattern does look to break toward the end of the month as warm readings look to return at that time. Meanwhile the GFS is also showing a big Arctic High Pressure building over Alaska and slowly moving toward the Continental United States as we head into the first couple days of March. March looks to also roar in like a lion if some active weather around as well but we’ll have to see if this trend continues and if this cold pattern will break as mentioned in this run in about two weeks’ time. Questions that may be answered on the next episode of Iowa in the Freezer!