hawkeye_wx

Models have been back and forth with possible initial bands developing well out ahead of the main precip area. Fortunately, a good one popped up near Cedar Rapids and dropped an inch.

My guess for Cedar Rapids is 3". The model trend today has not been good for this part of the state. Much of the snow has been shifted west and north.

Yeah, a few models are trying to pull the rug out from under parts of southern/eastern Iowa. Other models are holding firm with solid totals. There should be more agreement considering it's about to start.

12z Euro - Over here, models have been shifting the storm's bulls-eye up into Minnesota.

My final storm total is 8.4". The precip total is 0.46", making the ratio 18 to 1. This stuff is so fluffy, it has already compacted down to 6.4".

My storm total is 8.3". Before the storm I guessed 4" and would have been quite happy with 6".

I'm up to 7.1". This is absolutely my favorite storm of the season, passing the last one, which passed the last one before that.

I'm up to 6.5", with 1.4" in the last hour. The 2" in 30 minutes report sounds excessive. The strong enhancement parked over Cedar Rapids on radar is finally showing signs of weakening. Cyclone, I had a few inches on the ground before this storm.

I'm up to 5.1". As expected, this wave moving across Iowa this afternoon is dropping nice, fluffy dendrites.

I'm sitting at 4.2 inches. These bands keep lifting north of Cedar Rapids, allowing the dry slot to poke in here. I really hope this latest band can remain over us so we can reach six inches. Yeah, southeast Iowa is getting the shaft as well, just like last storm(no mix this time, just a dry slot). Down by Keokuk there isn't even an inch on the ground.

I woke up to 3.4", about what was expected from the intial heavy batch. As the mid-level energy slowly moves in from the west, snow is once again expanding across Iowa. Models suggest another few inches for Cedar Rapids. South of I-80 may actually get a bit screwed by the dry slotting.

4-6+" of snow has fallen in the greater Des Moines area in only three hours tonight.

12z Euro

12z UK

I'm going with 4" in Cedar Rapids.

The 12z euro has really amped up the Wednesday midwest storm. Of course, it's dropping another several+ inches across much of Iowa. It is an epic period for Iowa snow geeks(unless you live in Sioux City). The only thing that is lacking is real biggie storms.

The 00z Euro did come back southeast with the heart of the snow, so a wide swath of Iowa gets a solid 3-6".

I'm interested in seeing if the euro continues to shift the best precip into n/nw Iowa, or rejoin the rest of the models.

Nah. It's still the heart of winter. "Go big or go home" season is March. "Go home" season is April.

Today's big warmup unfortunately melted a few inches of snow, but it made it possible to finally get all the thick ice off the streets, driveways, and sidewalks. That stuff sucked.

We're going to need a nice snowfall this weekend just to get back what we're losing today.

We've surged into the mid 40s here in the city... way higher than originally expected.

I measured 6.9" a couple hours ago from about 0.90" precip. We are currently receiving more bands of light to moderate snow on the backside, which will push me over 7". The wettest models were correct about the qpf. The GFS and Euro were way too dry and way underdid the warm nose surge. I would have received 9-10" without the mixing. The wind is whipping now and blowing the top layer of snow around. I finally got my 6" storm. I think we've had four winter storm warnings this year. This is the first one that verified.

The back edge of the snow/mix line has quickly surged northeast through Cedar Rapids/Iowa City, so we are back to snow. Much of the heavier precip is done, though. Radar shows a lot of dry pockets to the sw. It might be a struggle to get the additional 1.5" of snow needed to reach 6" for the event.

It's pretty crazy how something always seems to go wrong for Cedar Rapids. It's a real struggle just to get a 6" snowstorm here. 6" just isn't that much, but it is here. This one finally looked like a sure thing, but nope.