Sheldon, Iowa — December held the first blizzard of this winter season on the 23rd.
After having 2 inches of light fresh snow on the 22nd, 44-mile-per-hour winds kicked up a substantial ground blizzard that caused local authorities to pull the plows off the road, and the Iowa State Patrol issued a statement telling motorists to not travel, and that law enforcement may not be able to get to stranded motorists in the deeply drifting snow, and white-out conditions.
The winds weren’t the only problem on the 23rd, as it displayed the lowest temperature of the month and the year of 2022 at 18 degrees below zero, which combined with the high winds gave a wind chill of 55 degrees below zero. That day landed in the middle of a nine-day stretch of below-zero lows, and one of two days of below-zero highs, coming in at 13 degrees below zero for a high temperature. The warmest low for the month came toward the end of the month, when the 29th saw a low of 32 degrees. The warmest that December 2022 saw was on the 3rd and the 5th, when the high was at 37 degrees. Partly due to these strongly low temperatures, the average high for the month came in at a mere 22 degrees, compared to the average normal high temperature of 30. The average low also was below normal, coming in at seven degrees, compared to the average normal low of 11.
The month of December 2022 logged seven days of measurable snowfall, ranging from a quarter of an inch on the third and 20th, to a full four-and-a-half inches on the ninth. Those snowfall events brought in a total snowfall at 12 and three-quarters inches, which was just over five inches above the normal December snowfall of 7.7 inches. The total season snowfall as we wrapped up December 2022 was 18.2 inches, which is a full six inches above the normal season-to-date snowfall of 12.2 inches. All this extra snow was melted to a liquid precipitation for the month of 2.76 inches, which is nicely more than the normal precipitation for December of 93-hundredths. This additional moisture helped, but was not enough to bring the year-to-date precipitation to normal, as we closed out the year 8.21 inches below normal precipitation.
