A DOT snowplow camera view of Highway 20 near Fort Dodge.
It may be a rollercoaster week ahead where Iowans use both the heaters and air conditioners in their homes and cars.
Meteorologist Kurt Kotenberg, at the National Weather Service office in metro Des Moines, says flurries are still flying this morning after Sunday’s snowstorm that dropped between 6 and 8 inches of snow in northern Iowa.
“We even had a report from Clear Lake, just south of Mason City, that came in with nine inches of snowfall,” Kotenberg says. “It’s pretty widespread, 6 to 7 to 8 inches up in our north, all the way from Estherville to just north of the Waterloo area.”
While we’re 20 days into spring, it hasn’t felt like it in Iowa, with multiple snowfalls and temperatures some 30-degrees below normal. Kotenberg says spring-like weather will be arriving very soon, but it likely won’t last long.
“We’re going to go from 6 to 7 to 8 inches of snowfall in northern Iowa on Sunday to 70s possible by Wednesday, 70s looking even more likely by Thursday and Friday,” Kotenberg says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if even 80s start creeping up in northern Missouri here.”
While many Iowans will welcome the warmth, the forecast calls for it to be gone by Saturday. “We’re dropping back down into the 30s and 40s and we cannot rule out another bit of snowfall for next weekend, especially for northern Iowa,” Kotenberg says. “There’s a lot of time between now and then, but we’re definitely going to be on a rollercoaster this week, in terms of weather.”
Thunderstorms and severe weather are possible on Friday, he says, as the arriving cold front collides with the warm air. Keep up with the changing forecast at weather.gov.