A strong pacific storm system will tap into gulf moisture to deliver accumulating snow and strong wind gusts. This will have major impacts across Iowa, so read on for the full details...
A deepened trough and powerful pacific low will dip into the central US by Thursday, but impacts will start as soon as Wednesday. The early thinking is snow sets in across western Iowa as soon as late Wednesday morning and progressively spreads east into the northwest half by Wednesday night. Snow would continue over these areas and slowly press east into eastern Iowa by Thursday through Friday. Now, the catch to this is we are far from done with the system. Strong north/northwest winds will increase after 12 AM Thursday across western Iowa and quickly spread east into central Iowa daybreak Thursday followed by eastern Iowa in the afternoon. Northwest winds will continue to gust 40-55 MPH across all of Iowa Thursday evening through late Friday night so this will have near white-out conditions for a good portion of Iowa Thursday through Friday. The wind will eventually calm down later Saturday but still thinking blowing snow will be a big issue into the first half of the weekend.
We are too early in the period to release a snowfall forecast yet but here is the probability for at least 6"+ of snow Wednesday through Friday. I will be narrowing this down further in the coming days before the final forecast. Snowfall numbers will be available then but just know this will have moderate to heavy accumulations with it, so plan accordingly.
Stay tuned to Iowa Storm Center.com for updates.
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