Weather Water Cooler

There’s no comparison between the two years as far as snowfall is concerned. These are some of the pictures submitted through YouNews last year of the big blizzard seen from February 1st into the 2nd.

Snowfall was less in the northern half of the state with Waterloo picking up only 9.5″. Dubuque stacked up 14.9″, Cedar Rapids shoveled out almost a foot at 11.8″, but Iowa City and the southern third of the state came in on top. Iowa City was heaped with the official measurement of 16.5″ with even a few higher totals around that area.

Last year we had a bumper crop of snow. 2012… the snow isn’t even in some spots! The mild and quiet weather has left Iowans this winter with more of a spring feel.

“But what about the ‘storm’ this weekend?”… That’s the question being phoned into the Weather Lab lately.

Let’s start off with the fact that we’ve been pretty warm all “winter” long minus a few stray days. That’s going to factor into the forecast. The lack of snow will also help prevent us from getting incredibly cold as this system rolls through. Right now we’re looking at a big possibility of rain for much of the event. We’ll likely see a mix develop as cooler air gets tangled in. These factors will limit the snowfall.

Next, factor in how the track has been changing drastically from one model run to the next. We’ll use the National Weather Service in Des Moines as an example. They put out a Winter Storm watch for much of the state when the track was more northerly. Now, it seems that most of the activity will be in Kansas, Nebraska, and Western Iowa. A large chunk of that Winter Storm Watch has been taken out.

The main message behind this system is that it’s very temperamental. Right now it looks like we’ll have some rain, but little snow. It bears watching as there’s a possibility things could change again in the next 24 hours. Keep with KCRG-TV9 as we’ll continue to post updates as this system develops.