Northwest Iowa — While we are expecting some wintery weather travel difficulties this weekend, it pales in comparison to what we were dealing with ten years ago.
A winter storm bore down on the area from December 23rd through the 27th, 2009, causing issues across the Upper Midwest. In fact areas of the South also had issues with ice. The part of the storm that affected us came up from Oklahoma and exited into Canada through Wisconsin.
In our area, the 2009 storm brought 16-18 inches of snow for southeast South Dakota, nearly 20 inches in southwest Minnesota, and around 15 inches in our area. But the blowing and drifting was the main issue, with blizzard warnings issued for most of the Northern Plains down to the Nebraska-Kansas border.
It was a tragic Christmas Day in Sioux County in 2009, due to the winter storm. A Rock Valley man died of exposure during the blizzard and a Hull family lost their home to a fire. The Rock Valley man had gotten stuck and after attempting to free his vehicle for a long time, decided to walk back home or for help, and didn’t make it. Large drifts and piles of snow interfered with the response of emergency vehicles.
During the storm ten years ago, county secondary road departments advised people not to pile snow on the roads as it would probably not be removed for several days, would probably cause additional drifting, and could become extremely hard, damaging snowplows when they could get to it.
