Hawkeye

ICON

Yeah, a yellow band is about to move over Homestead. I am up to 6 inches. The snow has been a bit lighter than expected so far this morning, with too many breaks, but it's dumping now.

It appears it may be brutally cold for the Iowa caucuses next Monday evening. The Euro is showing a temp across the state of -10F and a wind chill of nearly -30F.

The Des Moines/Ames area appears to be the overnight winner, with reports of 8-10".

I'm at 4.8" this morning, waiting for the defo zone to solidify. The ratio so far is 8.7 to 1. With another 12 hours to go, I should get another 4-6".

I'm up to 3.1".

I already have 2.1 inches, so it is accumulating efficiently.

18z Euro... continues to shift the heaviest band southeast.

Models continue to fade southeast.

So even if we get a solid 10:1 ratio, the GFS says Cedar Rapids only gets 8". Meanwhile, DVN says 11-16". That just seems way overdone. I'm still only expecting 6-8". Tomorrow's wind will certainly not help ratios. I ALWAYS get garbage ratios when the snow is blows around and compacts in my yard.

So now it's 11-16" in Cedar Rapids? Jeez. I'm still going with 6-8". It will be interesting to see what the average ratios are. The models are consistently showing ratios in the good snow band only around 7 to 1, pretty awful. The NWS graphics suggest a ratio above 10 to 1.

The latest Euro is a bit messy with the energy, so it's kinda strung out until farther east.

12z GDPS slid a bit farther east, similar to the GFS.

Totals appear to be dropping for areas north and west of Waterloo.

Risk for Iowa continues to be too much of an eastward slide.

I've learned to be conservative. I'm discounting the higher end of the range being pushed by the NWS and local mets. I'll go with 6-8" for Cedar Rapids.

COD https://weather.cod.edu/satrad/nexrad/index.php?parms=EAX-N0Q-1-12-100-usa-rad

FV3 is southeast as well, much better for KC. In general, models are also dropping totals across northern Iowa.

I'd say the 12z HRRR is a bit over-juiced.

Euro sliding a bit too far east for Iowa, but it's going big.

That map goes through Thursday morning and includes the next wave of snow not associated with this storm.

The GDPS continues to not even show warning snow across eastern Iowa.

This ICON run simply has the short wave flying eastward way too quickly. It needs to dig more and slow down.

I'm not sure how the model blend is coming up with 11" in Cedar Rapids. I don't think there is a single model showing that much. Using Kuchera, most models are 6-7".

That's interesting how the HRRR has shifted the heaviest snow band northwest of Cedar Rapids.