Welcome to winter 2015! The areas first significant snowfall of the season arrived through the day yesterday delivering between 3 to as much as 7 inches of snow to south central Iowa. The snow came down quite intense at times creating near white out conditions in areas. It was this snow that lead to a significant multiple car pile up on interstate 80 in the Des Moines metro near Altoona and another area of accidents on I-35 near Ames.

A very fast moving, intense clipper system is what was cause of the heavy snow. Snow starting arriving here in central Iowa already by 11:30 on Monday and by the afternoon hours there were intense snowfall banding on the radar over central Iowa which moved from northwest to southeast in a typical clipper pattern. The snow ended by 8pm or so for most areas around here. At the end of the event snowfall totals ranged with heaviest amounts in northeastern parts of the area such places as Des Moines north metro through Ames and Marshalltown. The father south and west you got from Des Moines the less you saw in amounts. The highest reports I’ve seen was 7″ from Maxwell. The Des Moines metro saw around 4″ on its south side to near 6″ in the north. Below is a more complete list of reports from south central Iowa inclusively. This new snowcover and cold air behind this evenings snowfall will set the stage for the coldest temperatures of the year to date set to arrive tonight through Wednesday with a break on Thursday, then more cold air will arrive Friday behind a clipper system that will impact our neighboring states to our north.

Central Iowa Snowfall Reports

Maxwell 7.0″

Clive 6.50″

Johnston 6.0″

Ankeny 5.8″

Des Moines 5.3″

Ames 5.0″

Newton 4.50″

Des Moines Airport 4.2″

Cumming 4.2″

Winterset 3.0″