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'25-'26 Winter Storm #9

29 Dec 2025 07:44 AM
Much like how a major winter storm impacted travel on the weekend following Thanksgiving, a significant winter storm has done the same following Christmas. The featured map presents a smoothed analysis of available snowfall reports from the NWS and CoCoRaHS along with counties under a Blizzard Warning for the event and Snow Squall Warning polygons issued Sunday by the NWS. As with the previous winter storm, snowfall totals were not all that heavy, but the rapidly changing conditions and strong winds created for dangerous travel conditions. Travel remains difficult this Monday morning with ongoing blowing snow and some very brief snow showers. Interstate 35 remains closed, at this time, north of Ames to near Mason City. The good news is that sunshine is in the forecast this week, which after a prolonged period of fog will be a very welcome sight and help melt away the ice from roadways.

Voting:
Good: 12
Bad: 1

Tags:   winter2526  

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'25-'26 Winter Storm #8

19 Dec 2025 08:05 AM
It did not take much snow to cause major problems Thursday afternoon over northern Iowa and other isolated parts of the state. The featured map shows a smoothed analysis of available snowfall reports, which generally were a tenth of an inch or less! The counties outlined in red had a Blizzard Warning active sometime during the afternoon hours. Brief and intense snow squalls combined with very strong winds to create rapidly varying visibility and road conditions leading to many multi-vehicle accidents and subsequent road closures. Rainfall earlier in the day likely did not help either as it washed away road treatments and created some icy spots when temperatures rapidly dropped with the frontal passage. Other areas in the state outside of the highlighted Blizzard Warning and measurable snowfall area experienced some isolated travel issues with brief snow squalls.

Voting:
Good: 17
Bad: 2

Tags:   winter2526  

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'25-'26 Winter Storm #7

14 Dec 2025 10:34 AM
Another snow storm impacted Iowa during the weekend, making for the third such weekend in a row! The featured map attempts to provide an analysis of the snowfall reports from the most recent storm and not include reports from the storm that ended early Friday morning. This stripe of snow was not too far displaced from the previous stripe of snow from the aforementioned storm. A number of locations reported upwards of five to six inches of snow. It is somewhat a shame that all this recent snow will not stick around until Christmas as warmer weather this week will melt much of it.

Voting:
Good: 16
Bad: 1

Tags:   winter2526  

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'25-'26 Winter Storm #6

12 Dec 2025 08:10 AM
The very active start to the winter season continued on Thursday with a compact system producing a stripe of snow from the northwest to southeast corner of the state. An inch or so was the most common with a few higher isolated reports near Fort Dodge and larger totals found over far southeastern Iowa. The next round of snow arrives this evening along with bitterly cold air for the weekend. For those of you that are already tired of winter, warmer weather does look likely next week with a number of days with temperatures above freezing.

Voting:
Good: 21
Bad: 3

Tags:   winter2526  

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'25-'26 Winter Storm #5

11 Dec 2025 08:13 AM
While not for a snow producing winter storm, the extreme corner of northeastern Iowa was clipped with three to four inches of snowfall on Tuesday night into Wednesday, so meeting the arbitrary two inch threshold for IEM map generation and winter storm accounting! Iowa was rather fortunate for this event as the blowing snow threat did not materialize after significant melting occurred with the above freezing dew points on Tuesday and coincident strong winds. Our next round of snow is here already this Thursday with a few inches of snowfall expected over a stripe from the NW to SE corner of Iowa.

Voting:
Good: 10
Bad: 1

Tags:   winter2526  

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'25-'26 Winter Storm #4

07 Dec 2025 08:10 AM
Our bout of early winter season snowfall storms continued on Saturday with a stripe of snowfall painted from northwestern to east-central Iowa. The largest reports received so far approached ten inches over far northwestern Iowa. The first few storms presented snowfall measurement challenges, but this one fell quickly and didn't blow around too much. More chances of snowfall are in the forecast, but also a period of above freezing temperatures this week.

Voting:
Good: 25
Bad: 1
Abstain: 1

Tags:   winter2526  

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'25-'26 Winter Storm #3

02 Dec 2025 08:13 AM
Full-blown winter appears here to stay with another round of snow impacting Iowa on Monday into Tuesday. Totals from this event were much lighter with just an inch or two most commonly reported over southern and southeastern Iowa. As a reminder, the IEM generates these maps for snowfall events that have at least an arbitrarily chosen two inch or greater report and/or significant travel impacts. You can find previous event maps for this year and previous years by following the "winter2526" tag associated with this feature message. The next snowfall event arrives this evening, but totals are again expected to be on the light. A bit of quieter weather arrives for the remainder of the week.

Voting:
Good: 11
Bad: 0

Tags:   winter2526  

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'25-'26 Winter Storm #2

30 Nov 2025 10:14 AM
A major winter storm produced a prolonged period of snowfall over Iowa starting Friday evening and lasting into Sunday morning. The prolonged snowfall timing and covering two days makes for a difficult snowfall total analysis, but the featured map is an attempt at such. Reports over a foot were common from central into eastern Iowa. Having this event happen during the busy travel period after Thanksgiving has prompted the unique situation of numerous schools cancelling Monday to allow for an extra day for people to travel back. The map will likely be updated later today as more reports come in and some refinements can be made to the analysis.

Voting:
Good: 39
Bad: 0

Tags:   winter2526  

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'25-'26 Winter Storm #1

09 Nov 2025 10:32 AM
The first snowfall of the season for Iowa brought a number of inches of snowfall over northwestern Iowa on Saturday. These early season snowfalls tend to be difficult to measure and report as soil temperatures are well above freezing yet. This event also mostly fell during the daytime hours, so pavement temperatures where plenty warm to melt much of the falling snow as well. So the featured map is a bit rough, but the general pattern shown fits available reports over the past 24 hours. The largest total reported was around five inches near Spencer. The first significant cold air of the season also arrived for the weekend with air temperatures and wind chill values both well below freezing. And finally for accounting, the IEM produces these snowfall maps derived from available NWS COOP, Local Storm Reports, and CoCoRaHS observations when snowfall totals of at least two inches are reported and/or significant winter weather impacts are observed. The IEM has been generating these maps for 16 winter seasons now! These maps are generated from Autoplot 207, but get some manual quality control to help produce a refined analysis.

Voting:
Good: 13
Bad: 0

Tags:   winter2526