Not a lot of weather concerns in the short term with the primary highlight being a considerable warmup through the weekend. High temperatures today will be in the low 30s northeast to low 40s southwest, with low temperatures sitting in the upper teens to mid 20s. But have no fear, the warm up is here! Friday will be marvelous on Iowa standards for winter with highs ranging from the mid 30s northeast to nearly 50 southwest. Things warm up even moreso for Saturday with low 50s expected across the southwestern portion of the state. Precipitation chances are non-existent through this period with generally partly cloudy skies.

Attention then turns to the next precipitation event expected to impact our area early next week. Keep in mind that this is all still six to seven days out still and that the forecast is subject to change, especially considering that the storm is out in the Pacific right now and we haven’t been able to get better upper air observations from the system. However, we do have our computer models – and here is our current thoughts based upon the data that we have. A low pressure system will shift northeast from the Oklahoma panhandle into the Mid-Missouri Valley by Tuesday afternoon. Along and to the north of this will be snow, potentially heavy. It’s unrealistic to provide any form of totals at this point as it’s nearly guaranteed to change. We should have a preliminary set of totals hopefully by Friday or Saturday.

As the low treks into Michigan, cool, arctic air will rush in behind this, along with very strong winds. This will create dangerous travel difficulties with visibilities reduced. It’s way too early to go too farther into details on this storm, however if you have plans in the early part of the week, you should keep an eye on this and be prepared to make adjustments as needbe. We should be able to refine things more tomorrow and especially Saturday… and the closer we get, the more precise and accurate we will able to be. Anyone that releases forecasted snowfall totals this early should not be firmly trusted as they are guaranteed to fluctuate.

Please stay tuned to the Iowa Weather Network for the latest updates! Have a great Thursday.