Another weekend, another crippling snowstorm. Blizzard warnings were posted for much of Iowa on Sunday as winds up to 50-miles an hour accompanied a large snowstorm. Miles Schumacher, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, says parts of southeast Iowa saw more than eight inches of snowfall and much deeper drifts.
Schumacher says: "Southeast of Des Moines, toward the Ottumwa area, was our heaviest. We had eight-point-three inches by one report just north of Ottumwa and a general six-inch area extending from Ottumwa up toward Oskaloosa, once again." He says that one town in southeast Iowa seems to have been at the center of Mother Nature’s bull’s eye again and again this winter.
"The poor people in Oskaloosa, it’s like a broken record for them," Schumacher says. The past three major snowstorms have all dumped heavy snow on the Mahaska County town, with snowfall totals there just this month exceeding 30-inches. As for the statewide snowfall totals, Schumacher says they’re high this year but we haven’t yet gone into record territory, though there’s still a month of winter left.
He says we haven’t set a snowfall record yet but this is certainly more snow than we’ve seen in quite some time, really since the winter of 2000-2001. There’s a chance for more snow Thursday but it shouldn’t be a major storm, though Schumacher says the immediate threat is falling temperatures. Much of northern Iowa will see the mercury drop this afternoon into sub-zero numbers tonight, with wind chill levels of perhaps 20 or 30-below.