A Quiet Few Days – Iowa Weather Network Archives

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THE WEEK AHEAD: Sunshine will be returning in force later this week as warmer air will be coming as well. Today, however will be mainly cloudy with only the western counties seeing any prolonged sunshine. Highs today will be in the 20s to around 30. As we head toward the end of the week, temperatures will get up into the 30s and 40s across the state with partly to mostly sunny skies. A clipper system will miss the state to the northeast Wednesday night into Thursday with only some extra clouds around at that time.

WEEKEND: A cold front will come through the state late Saturday night into Sunday with a chance of some precipitation. At this time a wintry mix is possible during the overnight hours with some rain switching to snow on Sunday as colder air moves in. Amounts look to be light given the lack of moisture with this system. Temperatures on Saturday will be in the 30s to lower 40s across the state with Sunday seeing readings in the upper 20s to middle and upper 30s.

CAUCUS-GROUNDHOG STORM: We move into February and into the storm that has been mentioned here for nearly a week now. This run of the GFS has the storm moving further south once again, putting the state in the cold sector thus most of the precipitation looks to be in the form of snow or a wintry mix. Here is how the GFS sees things currently. Precipitation looks to move into the state late Monday afternoon and Monday night mainly in the form of snow, with the heaviest precipitation likely coming after Midnight in the western counties and through the overnight hours further to the east. Some warmer air moves into the far southern counties on Tuesday which may change some of the precipitation over to either a wintry mix or rain, the track of the low pressure center is key and confidence in the track is still questionable so a true forecast set in stone cannot be done at this time with regards to any possible changeover of precipitation types. What we are somewhat assured of is that the storm will last through Tuesday and into Wednesday as colder air moves in and the storm begins to move away. This is a significant system that will need to be monitored over the next several days to be able to get a clearer picture of where this system may end up and what precipitation and how much may fall. Temperatures are expected to plunge next week possibly toward zero once again (all dependent on any snow we may get).

FORWARD THINKING: As we look further into February, the first week of the new month is shown to be bitterly cold (of course mentioned in last paragraph). A few weak disturbances are seen moving through the may bring a bit of snow, but the main story according to this run is the bitter cold seen. Temperatures start to modify toward the end of the model run, but still look to remain below seasonal levels. Not too confident in this solution as the extended period has been very topsy-turvy, so we’ll wait for a few more runs to get a possible picture of what we may see then.