Winter doesn’t officially arrive until December 21st but you couldn’t tell from looking outside. The southern two-thirds of Iowa is getting more snow this morning, with as much as five inches expected. Matt Steinbugl, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, details the expected totals.
Snowfall amounts have ranged from three-to-four inches south of Interstate 80 this morning, with one-to-two inches between I-80 and Highway 20, and less snow further north. It’s the third time many Iowans have had to shovel or snowblow in the past week. Once this storm system is past, Steinbugl says it may stop snowing — at least for a few days.
He says we’ll have a brief reprieve as Friday looks sunny but the chance for snow is back in the forecast toward late Saturday or early Sunday. He acknowledges some Iowans just don’t think it’s an official Christmas without snow flying. Steinbugl says the way the current forecasts look, it’ll indeed be a white Christmas.
He says there are no substantial warm-ups expected that could melt the seven-to-ten inches of snow on the ground, so while there may or may not be snow actually falling on December 25th, yes, he says the ground at least should be white.