Iowa Weather Report January 28th 2015: Warmth Now. Weekend Snow?

ONE MORE WARM DAY: Another warm day across the state today with readings well into the 40s and 50s across the state. Some areas in the southwestern counties may hit the lower 60s. Some readings will be close to records. The eastern counties which haven’t been seeing a lot of this warm air that has been flooding the western 2/3rds of the state that last few days will get one day in the warmth but the northeastern counties may still only make it into the upper 30s at best. This is due to snow cover still on the ground in those areas. A front will come through tonight into early on Thursday bringing a slight chance of some drizzle, freezing drizzle of flurries across the state. Travel is not expected to be impacted too badly but take your time travelling on Thursday morning as bridges and overpasses may be a bit slick during your commute especially in the eastern and northeastern counties of the state. Readings on Thursday will reach their highs early on in the day and slowly fall back into the teens and lower 20s by Friday morning.

WEEKEND FUN: The GFS is still showing a significant system that will move across the state for the weekend. This will bring quite a bit of precipitation to the state mainly in the form of snow. It’s still too early to determine amounts at this time, but several inches are possible. The heaviest precipitation looks to fall Saturday night into the first half of Sunday across the state. Windy conditions may lead to some blowing and drifting snow that may reduce visibilities down in open areas. Stay tuned for any changes regarding this system in the coming days. Any shift in the track of this system will greatly affect what some may see out of this.

COLD BLAST: Following the system this weekend will be the reappearance of the bitter arctic air that we’ve been missing so much over the last few weeks. This looks to last for most of next week as well with another reinforcing shot at mid-week. This would likely bring high temperatures down into the teens and 20s for highs (if not colder depending on snow cover) with lows possibly getting near or below zero once again (depending on snow cover). We’re fairly confident in the cold blast for next week but our hesitation is on how low the temperatures will go. That is still up in the air at this time.

LOVIN FEBRUARY: Looking into the extended period, outside a day or two where readings may be above the seasonal levels for the early to middle part of the month, the rest of the period looks to be at or below seasonal levels for the time period. Reinforcing shots of cold air from the northwest look to be the norm according to this model run with several chances of seeing some light snow across the state. We’ll watch to see if this trend continues in future runs but timing certain systems out this far in advance is hard if not impossible.