Meteorologists said the snow storm closing in on the Iowa City area will create a “truly life-threatening situation,” in the next few days.
The snow storm is expected to drop more than a foot of snow on the Iowa City area, follow it up with blizzard conditions and leave bitter cold in its wake.
“Everything you can expect in the worst of winter weather is coming our way in the next few days,” said Andy Ervin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Quad Cities.
Ervin said the snow should start to pick up again any minute now and will intensify into the afternoon and evening.
“From now through the remainder of the afternoon, snow will become wide spread and moderate to heavy,” Ervin said.
As much as 10 to 12 inches are expected to fall across the state with an 80-mile wide swath from Ottumwa to Dubuque expected to get in excess of a foot. Ervin said Iowa City is included in that band of heavy snowfall.
“Iowa City is going to be impacted by heavy snow, there’s no doubt about that,” he said.
Winds are expected to pick up tonight and extend through tomorrow with wind speeds sustaining 25-30 miles per hour, Ervin said. Frequent gusts of 40 to 50 miles per hour are anticipated, as well, creating blizzard or blizzard-like conditions. Once the wind dies down, temperatures are going to drop to the single digits, Ervin said.
Ervin said the blowing and drifting snow will reduce visibility to a quarter of a mile or near zero and white out conditions will be possible.
“It’s going to be a very dangerous day tomorrow,” he said. “Travel is going to become, especially in open areas, virtually impossible.”
State Climatologist Harry Hillaker said it’s been a couple of years since the state saw a storm of this anticipated magnitude and even longer for the Iowa City area. The last storm comparable to the one moving into the area was on March 1, 2007. However, that storm basically only affected the western third of Iowa.
The last comparable storm in the Iowa City area was on Jan. 26, 1996. Hillaker said nearly 9 inches of snow was followed by extremely bitter cold. On Feb. 3 of that year, temperatures plummeted to an actual temperature of -26 degrees.
Hillaker said it’s not totally uncommon to have a storm of this magnitude this early in the season, but storms such as this one usually occur later in the winter.
“In recent years, we’ve had quite a bit of snow in December,” he said. “But for a single storm, it’s been quite some time since we’ve had this much all at once.”
