A strong storm front will slide through the state later tonight, maximizing Tuesday night and ending later Wednesday evening. Read on for the details including the Iowa Storm Center model suite for rain, snow and ice.
The frontal zone will start to impact the forecast area this evening with wintry mix north and showers/thunderstorms south increasing from west to east. By Tuesday morning, the dry slot will move in allowing for a brief lull in precipitation with an exception across northwest Iowa. The mix bag activity will continue Tuesday afternoon across northwest Iowa before transitioning to a heavy snow with 1-2” per hour late afternoon. Additional wrap around heavy wet snow will continue Tuesday through Wednesday with northwest Iowa as ground zero for this portion of the event. In addition, we will have wind gusts of 30+ MPH as snow is falling Tuesday night/Wednesday so with that, these areas will have blowing of snow and at times white-out conditions before snow tapers off from west to east later Wednesday/early Thursday.
The warm side to the storm system will have dynamics for general thunderstorms as mentioned above. So, with that, you can expect a good 0.5-1.5" of rain for the central and southeast half of the state. Refer to the map below for your specific location.
Once the backside of the front hits Tuesday night/Wednesday, this will give snow to the state with the highest amounts across northwest Iowa. Elsewhere, will have a trace-2" of snow in the light blue shaded areas.
An ice storm will be in the cards for localized areas and after crunching numbers, the amounts for such will be 0.25"+. Like the last ice storm, this will be an isolated event so prepare for a power outage if you are in the orange shaded zones below. Other areas of northern Iowa will have ice as well but below ice storm criteria.
That is the event for you, but we may need to issue a follow-up article Tuesday with dynamics that can put an uptick in the snowfall totals for northwest Iowa and it would be higher than what I have posted above So, stay tuned to Iowa Storm Center.com for further updates.
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