Heavy Snowfall

The past two days, as well as the weekend for some portions, left a majority of the state under a thick blanket of snowfall. The southeastern half of Iowa was the hardest hit, with upwards of a foot from the past 48 hours and for a small area this weekend a foot was piled up there as well. Luckily this snow wasn't accompanied by strong winds, however the winds should pick up tonight and into the weekend which may still allow for some blowing snow across the southeast half of the state. Currently a Blowing Snow Advisory is in effect for portions of eastern Iowa.

Storm totals for this latest storm have not been put together into a nice map thus far by any of the NWS offices. There are two images of interest though, both from this morning ~7 AM; 24-Hour Snow Totals & Current Snow Depth. Since these coop reports were received, several of the stations in southeast Iowa have received a couple more inches to bring storm totals to near or just above a foot. The highest total in the metro area of Des Moines was from West Des Moines where 11.2 inches of snowfall was measured. Otherwise the highest report was from Albia, 12.5 inches total from just this latest storm. Depth-wise, some portions of Iowa may have nearly two feet of snow much of which has came in the past 96 hours. Impressive events to say the least from the north side of the low pressure system with the snow totals.

Also impressive was the strength and happenings south of this low pressure system, as a large severe weather outbreak occurred last night and into the early morning hours. Many tornado reports were received and currently the NWS employees in the areas are working on reports and a final number won't likely be known until Friday or potentially later. It is known however that over 50 deaths have occurred in response to the tornadoes that ripped through several homes, businesses, and even Union University. I'll see what I can do to get many of the damage surveys' linked up on a post, thus far it looks like many of the tornadoes will be EF-0 or EF-1 based on initial damage images. Wouldn't be surprised for an EF-2 rating, as it is hard to see all of the damage with the shear amount of it that occurred last night and this morning. Thoughts and condolences are with those that were affected by the storms.