A Winter Storm Warning takes effect this afternoon for parts of the state and then tonight for other areas and will last through early Sunday.
National Weather Service forecaster Jim Lee says winter is going to start big. “You know, we had a little bit of snow. What was it a couple of weeks ago, but this one will be much, much more significant than that,” Lee says.
Lee says the snow will move in from west to east and it will continue snowing through Saturday. “Once it’s here, it’s going to be snowing almost continuously for the better part of about a day and a half, probably tapering off around Saturday evening or so. Maybe Saturday night, the last of the flakes. So most of the accumulation will be coming from tonight through the day on Saturday. And we’re looking for very significant snowfall amounts. Across a large portion of Iowa,” he says.
The heaviest snows will be in northern Iowa. “Most counties in that area will probably receive in the neighborhood of 9 to 13 inches of snow and a few spots in Iowa could even get more than that. So this is going to be a doozy,” he says. Once the snow stops, the cold will stick around.
“The snow will be tapering off Saturday night, but we do expect impacts to linger through that night and maybe into Sunday morning a little bit as it will take time to clear the roads and then, it will be colder for several days, much colder, especially after as relatively warm as it’s been here this last month or two, we do have some chance for more snow on Monday, but it doesn’t look like anything significant. Just adding a little insult to injury,” Lee says.
(By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)