Iowans have flipped the calendar to March and many are dreaming of warm spring days after a February that included a lot of heavy snow, ice and extreme cold.
Iowa Climatologist Harry Hillaker says the heaviest snowfall totals last month were recorded along the Highway 20 corridor. “Fort Dodge saw the most (snow) with a little over 26 inches reported there for the month of February,” Hillaker said.
“The area from roughly Pocahontas, the Storm Lake area, east-southeastward through Fort Dodge and Webster City…and all the way out to east-central Iowa, the Quad Cities area…pretty heavy band of snow across that part of the state.” It was the snowiest month for the State of Iowa in exactly three years, since February of 2015.
The first half of last month was quite a bit colder than normal, but the second half ran slightly warmer than usual for a February in Iowa. The last few days were especially warm, hitting the 60s in many locations.
“Putting it all together, temperatures ran about three-and-a-half degrees below normal for the month as a whole,” Hillaker said. “There was a lot of variability across the state – anywhere from a degree or two below normal in far southeast Iowa to seven or eight degrees below normal in the northwest corner of the state. The northwest had fairly deep snow cover all month long, helping to hold the temperatures down in that part of the state.”
The temperature extremes ranged from 18-below-zero on February 6 in Cresco and Webster City to a high of 70 on February 27 in Lamoni.
Thanks to Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City
