The first day of spring is Thursday and many Iowans may have snow on the ground when the new season arrives.
Forecasters predict drastic changes in the weather this week, as today’s high temperatures are expected mostly in the 60s and 70s.
Meteorologist Brad Small, at the National Weather Service, says open burning is strongly discouraged across a wide area of Iowa.
“With warm temperatures today, breezy conditions, low humidities and drying grasses still are going to result in conditions favorable for fires to spread pretty quickly,” Small says, “so we have a Red Flag Warning in effect for much of central and southern Iowa due to critical fire weather conditions.”
The final days of winter, however, may look radically different, as some four-dozen Iowa counties are under a Winter Storm Watch for tomorrow night and Wednesday.
“We’re looking at the potential for moderate to heavy snowfall accumulations, and that snow will be combined with very strong winds. Winds could gust to 50 miles per hour more,” Small says. “We’re back to the potential for a blizzard and travel to be hazardous, if not impossible at times. It looks like it may be a fairly impactful storm.”
Snowfall could range from two to eight inches, and it won’t be around long, as Small says highs on Thursday should be back in the 40s and 50s.
(Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)