Thousands of eastern Iowans lost power overnight in outages blamed on ice collecting on power lines. Alliant Energy reports it had as many as six-thousand customers in the dark, in communities including Stanley, Clarence, Tipton and Mechanicsville. MidAmerican Energy reports more than 73-hundred customers without power, mostly in the Quad Cities area.

Iowa utility companies have crews on alert to tackle power outages due to freezing rain. Alliant Energy spokesman Scott Drzynski says the ice storm of 2007 left thousands of Iowans in the dark for several days and also helped the utility prepare for the worst. [Read more...]

Heavy snow is in the forecast for a wide section of northwest Iowa which may get a foot of snow by Friday, while some areas could get closer to 20 inches. In the opposite corner of the state, forecasters say southeast Iowa should only see rain, while everything in between is facing a mix of snow, rain and a coating of ice.

Brad Small, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, says a large section of the state is in that “mix” area, where driving will likely be hazardous. Today, we’ll likely see sleet, snow and freezing rain, which could accumulate to one-or-two inches in depth, but by the weekend, Small says areas of northern Iowa may see three-to-five inches of new snow, or even ten-to-20 inches toward the Estherville area.

While much of Iowa’s northern third is under a Winter Storm Warning, eight counties in southeast Iowa are facing a Flood Watch. Small says the Burlington, Keokuk and Mount Pleasant areas will likely be getting heavy rain for the next few days.

Small says, “It’s a very broad storm and it’s going to produce precipitation for a rather long duration, so the folks that are fortunate enough to be warm enough where they’ll see predominantly rain, they could see some flooding.” He says the rivers and streams will likely have ice jams so the new rain will have trouble running off and will likely overflow the banks.

Thanks to Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City