The freezing rain event this past weekend prompted the National Weather Service to issue an Ice Storm Warning for much of eastern Iowa. Among the warning types issued for Iowa, the Ice Storm Warning is one of the least frequently used. The featured map presents the number of such warnings by county over the period of record, which dates back to around 2006. Freezing rain setups require the juxtaposition of warm air aloft and freezing temperatures near the surface and the surface low pressure track between the two, so southeastern Iowa is certainly a bit more favored for such setups than other portions of the state. It is interesting to note the two northeastern Iowa counties (Howard and Chickasaw) without a single such event, again since at least 2006 (the advent of programatic event tracking by the NWS).

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