A very robust and large area of cold air has a tight grip on most of the contiguous US this Tuesday morning. The featured chart presents an unofficial IEM accounting of NWS headline statistics presently active. For each headline, a population estimate is presented along with a list of impacted states and the number of counties/forecast zones affected. The spatial extent of the cold can be readily seen with alerts like Winter Storm Warning shown in Louisiana and Florida along with Extreme Cold Warnings from Minnesota to Florida! While not shown on this top 10 listing, a Blizzard Warning was issued this morning by Lake Charles, Louisiana for locations along the gulf coast! For Iowa, we are dealing with very cold air temperatures and wind dropping wind chill readings to below -30°F for much of northern Iowa.

Voting:
Good = 17
Bad = 22
Abstain = 3