Northwest Iowa — In addition to adhering to COVID-19 social distancing rules, The Easter Bunny may also have another challenge to deal with on Sunday. Snow.
National Weather Service meteorologist Phil Schumacher at the Sioux Falls office tells us what to expect.
(as said:)”We’re going to see a very strong low-pressure system actually develop across the Rockies and move northeast on Saturday night and Sunday and initially it will start off as rain Saturday afternoon or Saturday evening, but we’re going to see cold air come in and we’re going to see that rain change over to snow sometime on Saturday night and we’re expecting snow to continue through Sunday morning, and then gradually end on Sunday afternoon.“
He says while they don’t know what area will get the most snow, it will be fairly universal in the region.
(as said:)”It looks like everybody’s going to see some snow across the area and the ground will get white, whether you want that or not on Easter Sunday. It does look like we’ll have a white Easter across the region. As far as where the heaviest snow is going to see, it’s a little bit early right now. We’re kind of focusing on the northwestern Iowa into northeastern Nebraska area, but that could still shift quite a bit.“
But he says four to six inches of snow is not out of the question, and while they don’t know for sure yet, we should prepare for that much snow.
Schumacher says any snow that falls will be of the heavy and wet variety, and he urges people to be careful.
(as said:)”With the rain ahead of time it’s going to make it pretty slushy in that bottom couple bottom inches of snow that will be there. So, you know, if you decide to go out and shovel or something is it’s going to be a heavy snow to shovel. So you’re really going to want to be careful if you do that. And obviously if you have a snow blower that could clog as well. And so you actually want to be really careful unclogging those snowblowers if you decide to do that.”
Since this is spring, not winter, we asked Schumacher if we could just wait for mother nature to melt the snow. He says that depends on a number of factors, not least of which is how long you’re willing to wait — because next week is going to be fairly chilly.
(as said:)”With the sun as strong as it is, despite all the clouds and temperatures in the low 30s, it’s going to start melting on the roads pretty quickly. And so I’m not going to say it’s gonna be a great drive anywhere. It would be really slushy. There could be some pretty deep snow in places. It is going to start melting. Even on Monday, even though we’re only looking at highs in the mid 30s, you’re going to start seeing that compact pretty quickly. I would expect that a lot of snow will be gone by the middle of the week, you know, maybe in the places to get the heaviest snow, maybe it’ll be later in the week but it should start compressing on the streets pretty quickly.”
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