Northwest Iowa — When the National Weather Service uses the word “dangerous” it might be time to take notice.
Weather Service meteorologists are telling us that a dangerous winter storm is taking aim on the region starting Friday and continuing into the weekend. Meteorologist Brad Adams says a one-two punch of winter weather is headed for the area, starting with a band of heavy snowfall that’s forecast to develop by midday Friday, and continue through the night. He says wind chills Friday night will be in the 25 to 30 below range.
He says that will combine with winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour. According to the National Weather Service’s wind chill calculator, if we get down to -25 and the wind is 25 miles per hour, the wind chill could max out at over 50 degrees below zero.
Adams gives us an idea of amounts of snowfall in the area.
He says Saturday afternoon and evening the winds will pick up and will cause some blowing and drifting with visibility issues.
Adams says this is not a nuisance storm; it’s going to be a storm for which people need to take precautions and listen to forecasts and advice.
We asked Adams how sure forecasters were of the snowfall totals and extremely low temperatures. He says that the models appear to be fairly consistent with each other and with each new release of each model, so they are fairly certain about the predictions. Stay tuned to KIWA for further weather information and possible weather-related announcements.
