The storm system which has dumped as much as nine inches of snow on some portions of the state should move out of the state by late this afternoon. 

“We do have a few locations that have reached nine (inches of snow),” says Rod Donovan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “Mason City is one of those areas. We do have some unconfirmed reports of nine towards the Waverly area and then several reports of basically six-to-eight inches from that Mason City down through Waterloo area.”

The storm that’s dumped all that snow got “hung up” between a strong weather system that’s over the southern Plains and another system that’s on the east coast.  Donovan says later this afternoon the system will move out of southeast Iowa, headed for the lower Ohio Valley.

“That arctic high pressure over the state of Minnesota right now will continue to push down into the state of Iowa and gradually shove everything to the south and east,” Donovan says.

The National Weather Service issue a winter weather advisory for the entire state, but nothing more as high winds were not part of this storm. “This snow has been very fluffy snow and quite powdery and if we had had any winds whatsoever this would have been a snow prone to blowing and drifting,” Donovan says. “A lot of the winds right now are out of the northeast, at about five to 10 miles an hour, so we’re seeing very little of that.” 

Donovan says travel conditions should improve overnight, as there’s no more snow in the forecast and the winds aren’t expected to rise either.

“It’s a little bit of a nuisance with snow-covered roads, otherwise it’s about as gentle a snowfall as we can get,” Donovan says.

At mid-morning, there were no flights being delayed because of weather at airports in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Sioux City or Omaha.