116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Snowfall record set in Cedar Rapids in 1951
Gazette Staff/SourceMedia
Dec. 10, 2009 5:07 am
While this 10-plus-inch snowstorm has brought much of Eastern Iowa to a standstill, it's far from a record snowfall.
That would be the 19.9 inches of snow that fell on Cedar Rapids from March 11 to 14 in 1951, said State Climatologist Harry Hillaker.
“We hear of 30-foot snowstorms,” he said, “but we look at the research and it's never quite that big.”
The record for a 24-hour snowfall is 24 inches, Hillaker said. That's happened twice in southwest Iowa, which is closest to moisture moving up from the Gulf Stream. Those records were set Feb. 25 and 26, 1912, in Northboro (Page County) and April 20, 1918, in Lenox (Taylor County).
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