Iowa Weather Report January 18th 2015: More Melting on the Way

MOSTLY BORING WEEK AHEAD: No real big storm systems in the offing as we head into the new work week. There will be a few weak disturbances moving in from the northwest on Tuesday and again Wednesday that could bring some light snow to the state. This will be hit and miss and some areas may not even get a flake of snow. Meanwhile skies will be partly to mostly sunny for the time being with readings in the 30s and lower 40s both today and Monday. Those systems on Tuesday and Wednesday should bring readings back down into the 20s and 30s for highs at that time which would be closer to the seasonal norm for this time of year.

NEXT WEEKEND: Another system will be moving into the state as we head into next Sunday. Ahead of it, readings are likely to warm again perhaps even into the 40s in the southern and southwestern counties of the state. Clouds will be on the increase as the system rolls in late Sunday into the following Monday. This looks to begin an active period that looks to go through the end of the month.

LOOKING TOWARD FEBRUARY: As we look into the extended period which takes us to Groundhog Day, the weather pattern continues to look active for most of the period with continued clipper systems coming from the northwest. We have seen in previous model runs some arctic air that may come down into the area toward the end of the month, however this run doesn’t show as cold of air coming down at that point. We’ll have to see if this run is an outlier or that the arctic air won’t be making an appearance at that time. Nevertheless winter is far from over at this point.