Iowa Weather Report February 17th 2015: Cold All Week

FEBRUARY FREEZE: Not a whole lot to say in the next seven days except that the weather is still going to remain cold with some chances of light snow around. The best chance looks to be on Friday with another clipper system that will be followed by yet another push of Arctic Air from the north. Highs today will be in the upper single digits north to the lower 20s in the southwestern counties of the state. Skies will be partly to mostly sunny today but don’t let that fool you, it will be cold. Wednesday and Thursday could see readings in the single digits above and below zero with northeastern Iowa likely seeing the sub-zero readings especially on Wednesday. Lows will drop well below zero both Tuesday night and Wednesday night as well. Wind chills will easily get down to -20 or colder in some areas as well.

MARCHING ALONG: As we look into the extended period, the cold weather doesn’t look to end anytime soon, but the weather pattern does get a bit more active with the GFS showing a clipper system around the 25th and 26th that could bring some accumulating snows at that time, this could be the next best chance of seeing accumulating snow in the state but we’ll watch model runs to see if this continues to be seen. As we head into the month of March the GFS is still showing the pattern shifting more out of the west with temperatures beginning to moderate at that point. It’s also showing a system at the beginning of the month that could bring some precipitation to the state as well. We can only hope that this trend continues in future model runs and that this cold pattern breaks sooner rather than later.