First Arctic Air Blast

Well the Arctic air is into the plains! The first official Arctic air shot of the Fall/Winter has made its’ way into the plains and is taking a fairly strong hold with temperatures remaining in the 40s and below for much of the area. For an Iowa summary, this mornings lows were quite chilly! Ranging from the lower 30s in southeast Iowa to the mid 20s in northwest Iowa! The warmest low temperature this morning was in Washington and Fairfield, where it was a ‘warm’ 34 degrees. Lowest temperature in Iowa was in Le Mars, where this morning it dropped down to 22 degrees, although Estherville was not far behind with a low of 23 and there were several cities in the northern half of the state that reached 24 degrees for the low. Highs today weren’t terrible so to say, but with a howling northwest wind, they definitely didn’t feel too warm. Low 50s in the southwest part of the state were the warmest, with much of the corner reaching 52 degrees. While the northeast part of the state stayed quite cool, with the help of clouds much of the day and the wind bringing in even colder air, Decorah was the winner today with a high of 35 degrees!

Besides talk of just the cold air that moved in with the latest system, snow came in with it! Here in Ames both yesterday and today featured several ’spirts’ of flurries, none of it accumulating. Other areas of the state weren’t as lucky, if you don’t like the snowfall, as they actually did have some accumulation of it. Most likely, just a dusting of snow, but it was enough for the CO-OP observers around the state to report it as snowfall! Areas that recieved snow yesterday/last night included: Lake Park, Swea City, Titonka, Britt, Lake Mills, Osage, Tripoli, Waucoma and Maquoketa. Other areas in Iowa saw flurries and maybe localized accumulation as well, those are the only Co-op observers in the state that reported accumulation.

As mentioned before, the other factor today was the wind. Gusts today were fairly consistant across the state with them ranging from 25-40 mph across the state. It was slightly calmer in the southeast, while the northwest was by far the windiest today with several stations reporting gusts in the upper 30s.

Tonight should see lows in the low 20s to around 30 across the state, with temperatures tomorrow warming up a bit with the sun. Ranging from the mid 40s in the north, to some lower 50s across the south side of the state. Both lows and highs should gradually increase through the weekend and into early next week before the next system moves in on Sunday night/Monday with a chance of rain.