Little Ice, Little Rain, Little Snow – Iowa Weather Network Archives

A PEPPERING OF PRECIPITATION: A system will be moving through the state today bringing with it a chance of some rain, wintry mix and snow. Most of the precipitation will be in the form of rain over the southern and eastern counties of the state by the late morning hours after some freezing drizzle or sleet. The rest of the state barring the far western and northwestern counties will see a mix of freezing drizzle, sleet and snow while the northwestern counties should see all snow with this system. Any ice accretion should be minor with only a few hundredths possible. Snow accumulations of 1-3” are possible with the highest totals in areas where snow will be falling the longest (mainly over the west and north). Winter Weather Advisories are in place for large sections of the state for the possible ice and light snow. Highs today will be in the 30s to around 40 across the state. The precipitation will change to all snow before ending Tuesday morning as the storm moves to the east. Skies will be slow to clear with only the western counties possibly seeing any long amounts of sunshine mainly during the afternoon. Highs on Tuesday will be cooler with 20s to lower 30s.

ROUNDING UP THE WEEK: A clipper system will bypass the state to the northeast bringing only a few clouds to our northeastern counties late Wednesday night into Thursday but any precipitation looks to stay away at this time. Temperatures will begin to rebound toward the end of the week with readings back into the 30s and lower 40s with partly to mostly sunny skies around. A cold front looks to slide into the state on Saturday which may bring some precipitation to the state. It’s too early to determine precipitation type at this time, but any amounts look to be light.

CAUCUS TIME: Just a week from the Iowa Caucus and the GFS still shows a system moving through the area next Monday into Tuesday. This run has the system moving a bit further to the north which would put more of the state in the warm sector and thus any precipitation would be mainly in the form of rain with perhaps some wintry mix during the overnight hours. Confidence in this solution is low but the timing is still on par as it has been over the last week. We’ll have to keep checking model runs over the next couple of days to get a clearer picture as to what this system may bring to the state. Given the fluidity of the situation, temperatures could be all over the place all dependent on where the system may track. Much colder air is expected to follow with the GFS showing some light snow possible on Wednesday as the system departs.

MORE ON FEBRUARY: Further along on the model, the temperatures are shown to head back up above the freezing mark around the 7th of February. There are a few systems seen moving through the area although none of them look to be of any significance at this time. This may change as we move forward though.