Our remarkable stretch of warm January weather came to an abrupt end on Wednesday thanks to a very strong cold front plowing through the state bringing some snow along with it. The high temperatures, before the front passed through, hit record levels over portions of eastern Iowa and with snow falling today, creates the unique situation of having a record high temperature followed by snow the next day. The featured chart presents an IEM computed analysis of the most recent occurrence of having snowfall on the day after a record high temperature for some long term sites in the state. There are caveats galore with this data due to issues with snowfall data quality and the nature of daily climate observation times being at 7 AM (long story). Heavier snowfall totals are expected over eastern Iowa, so the bottom portion of the chart presents the most recent occurrence where the snowfall was four inches or more. In general, these events are rare and getting heavy snowfall is even more rare. Note: the record high temperature was computed up until that date since the beginning of the record.

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Tags:   jan12   snow   highs