02/19/10 Midwest Snowstorm

[MatthewCarman]

A snowstorm is moving through the Midwest. Heavy snow has been falling across Iowa for most of the day and some areas already has 5" of snow. Travel is not good right now. Roads are slick and many vehicles are already going off the road. On Ch13 they showed a picture of a 4WD truck sitting on the middle divider on one of the interstates around Des Moines. This divider is almost as tall as the truck is. If anyone has travel plans tonight or tomorrow drive safely.

Another winter storm is expected Sunday with parts of Kansas, Missouri and Iowa seeing over 6" of snow and possibly blizzard conditions.

Edit: Des Moines has already seen over 60 inches of snow this year as of 02/19/10 6:00 PM and the record is 72" of snow.

 

[Josh Richardson]

Keep in mind that your snow total for the season you mentioned isn't for "Iowa", I assume its a Des Moines snowfall total you mean. Anyway, roads look to be completely covered right now along and south of I-80. Fairly quiet up here in Northern IA and looks to stay that way primarily. Nothing too major yet though down south as the highest total for the day so far appears to be Greenfield with 5.0 inches reported. Problem is, as Carman hinted at, is there is beginning to be nowhere to put all this stuff up here.

 

[MatthewCarman]

Keep in mind that your snow total for the season you mentioned isn't for "Iowa", I assume its a Des Moines snowfall total you mean. Anyway, roads look to be completely covered right now along and south of I-80. Fairly quiet up here in Northern IA and looks to stay that way primarily. Nothing too major yet though down south as the highest total for the day so far appears to be Greenfield with 5.0 inches reported. Problem is, as Carman hinted at, is there is beginning to be nowhere to put all this stuff up here.

Thanks Josh. I fixed it to say Des Moines and not Iowa. Looks like the Des Moines area has seen almost 4" of snow today with more expected come Sunday. Des Moines may come close to breaking the record for most snow in a winter season this weekend.

 

[James Langford]

I drove through that mess yesterday. I picked up a car I got at auction in Minneapolis, and hit Iowa around 1 pm coming south on 35. Pretty much snow and ice from Clear Lake all the way down into Missouri. Lots of smashed up cars along the road (I stopped counting at 20). The temperature was thankfully just a bit above freezing most times, but there was still a lot of snow accumulation and ice on the road. I made it into Wichita around midnight, thankful to be there safely.

 

[Josh Richardson]

Roads werent bad at all in the northern area that you speak of, the Clear Lake area was just fine unless your referring to the cars in the ditches....those are probably still there from the other day I assume because even the back roads up here were clear yesterday.

 

[James Langford]

Yeah, you are right. I got my cities mixed up. The ice line started about 30 or so miles out of Des Moines. The scary thing is just how quickly it would switch from rain over to ice on the road. Not something I hope to do again.