Iowa’s rollercoaster winter weather is going down the rails again, in a hurry. After an unseasonably warm Sunday, forecasters say we’re headed back into the deep freeze today. Sioux City had a high of 65-degrees for the state’s warmest spot on Sunday, but meteorologist Frank Boksa at the National Weather Service says a cold front is already arriving in Iowa this afternoon. “It will usher in some sharply colder temperatures along with a very brisk northwest wind at 15 to 30 miles an hour,” Boksa says. “Some light snow is expected to develop along and ahead of the boundary. We should see maybe an inch or so of snowfall.”
A few Iowa cities set new record highs Sunday in the 50s and 60s, but now much of Iowa’s northern half is under a Wind Chill Advisory from midnight tonight through noon on Tuesday. “Overnight, we’ll get the coldest push of air,” Boksa says. “Temperatures will be dropping to around 10-below.” The cold air with the winds may mean wind chills falling as low as 25 and 35-below zero.
It is late January, after all, so he says the frigid air will be sticking around. “Wednesday night and Thursday we’ll drop back down again,” Boksa says. “We’re looking at lows around 10-below for Wednesday night and highs only around five above for Thursday.” The long-range forecast calls for somewhat warmer weather on Friday, with highs creeping back into the 20s and 30s across much of the state.
Reporting by Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City