Iowa Weather Report March 20th 2015: Spring into Spring

SEASONAL AND CALM: It will remain somewhat quiet for a few more days before the weather pattern begins to get active once again. Today we’ll see mostly sunny skies around with readings well into the 50s and 60s across the state as we start Spring later this evening. Parts of western Iowa could reach the low 70s. There could be a few more clouds on Saturday but still plenty of sunshine around with readings in the 50s and 60s for highs.

ACTIVE PERIOD: The weather pattern gets a bit active in the latter half of the weekend as a storm system will move into the state late Sunday into early on Monday. This could bring a chance of rain and perhaps some snow across the area. It’s too early to determine amounts but any precipitation looks to be light at this point. Any snow will likely fall during the nighttime hours Sunday night into early Monday morning. Highs Sunday with more clouds around will be in the 40s and 50s with cooler readings on Monday in the upper 30s to near 50 across the state. Another system on Tuesday could bring another chance of rain across the state. There could be some embedded thunder with this system as it moves through, but don’t expect any severe weather. Highs will be in the 50s for the most part on Tuesday.

CALMING DOWN: The weather pattern looks to calm down once again as we move through the end of next week. Temperatures look to drop below seasonal levels once again, perhaps only into the 40s to lower 50s for highs which won’t be too bad. Skies look to be partly to mostly sunny during this time.

AIMING TOWARD APRIL: As we look into the extended period, the GFS model is showing a clipper type system dropping in from the northwest around the 28th and 29th that could bring some rain and snow to the state at that time. This would be followed by colder air that will move in to finish out the month of March. We’ll watch to see if this continues to be shown on future runs. Temperatures look to moderate as we head into the first part of April with the weather pattern perhaps getting active again at that time. Any precipitation at this point would be a good thing as we’ve been running dry of late and this run shows several chances of getting that much needed precipitation. We’ll see if this trend continues as we move through the period.