Snow storm hits Iowa
Webster Co., northern Iowa grazed as storm heads east
The third snow storm of the season passed through Webster County Monday evening as meteorologists predicted it would dump a foot of snow further south in Iowa while making its way east.
Snow started to fall in earnest after 5 p.m. in Fort Dodge as a weather system moved north with what the National Weather Service in Des Moines predicted would be light, fluffy snow.
Predictions for snowfall varied around Webster County, according to Allan Curtis, meteorologist. Southern Webster County was expected to receive three to five inches of snow through the night, with six to nine inches predicted farther north. Curtis said areas farther north outside of Webster County would be spared the majority of the snow passing through, with areas like Algona predicted to receive as little as an inch or two.
“Webster County is taller than the surrounding ones, which means there will be a variation in snowfall by area,” Curtis said.
“The accumulation pace is harder to nail down,” he said. “We’re battling a lot of dry air which has slowed (the system’s) northward march.”
Overnight, Curtis said snowfall would periodically ease, expecting moderate to heavy snowfall on and off throughout the evening, tapering off by sunrise.
The light, fluffy snow experienced through the night was primarily due to the temperature profile of the atmosphere’s surface. Lighter snow is produced when temperatures at the surface are near 0 degrees. Heavier snow is produced when the surface is near the freezing point, about 32 degrees.
“It’s not going to be backbreaking snow to shovel,” Curtis said, though the weight at higher accumulations close to 10 inches would be more substantial.
Wind speeds through Monday evening and Tuesday morning were predicted to be relatively slow at 10 to 15 mph, with gusts of about 25 mph, meaning the storm would not devolve into a blizzard. But with light snow, even those speeds could blow it around, causing periodic whiteouts, particularly on open highways like U.S. Highway 20 and in rural areas.
Conditions farther south in Ames and Des Moines were predicted to be an event only seen once every 15 to 20 years. Des Moines was expected to receive 12 inches of snow in a single day’s event, something that has only happened nine times in the last 140 years.
The system bringing in the snow that was expected to blanket a wide swathe from Omaha to Chicago came from the southwestern U.S.
“In the winter, you’ll hear about systems coming from Canada or the Texas panhandle,” Curtis said, this one being the latter.
As the system traveled north into Monday evening, the National Weather Service said it would travel east and northeast into Tuesday, moving into Illinois and southern Wisconsin before continuing into Indiana and Michigan.
“We’re on the northern edge of the system coming through,” Curtis said.