Winter storm continues across Iowa, expected to drop up to 12 inches of snow through Saturday night

The first winter storm of the season, which arrived in Eastern Iowa Friday night, is dumping heavy accumulating snow across the state Saturday, and will continue into Sunday morning with strong winds and snowfall totals of 8 to 12 inches.

The National Weather Service Quad Cities bureau, in an update posted at 3:40 a.m. Saturday, warned that “travel will be very difficult to impossible” through Sunday morning as a result of the storm.

Snowfall rates of 1 to 1 1/2 inches an hour are possible Saturday morning and again after 2 p.m. Saturday.

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Winds will increase Saturday evening, “exacerbating and prolonging travel impacts from blowing snow into Sunday morning,” according to NWS. Near-whiteout conditions will be possible at times as winds blow at 30-40 mph.

Some parts of the state could set records for one-day snowfall in the month of November. In Cedar Rapids, the current record is 9 inches, set Nov. 22, 1893. The record in Dubuque is 10.3 inches, set Nov. 25, 1992.

Updates about the storm can be found on the National Weather Service Quad Cities bureau website and social media pages.

City, county crews focus on ‘priority routes’

In Cedar Rapids, city crews are were planning to maintain traffic on priority routes and assist with emergency response as needed, according to an update distributed Friday afternoon.

Linn County crews are prioritizing secondary roads based on traffic count and road surface, designating them as priority routes and standard routes. Maps of the priority and standard routes are available on Linn County’s website at LinnCountyIowa.gov/Engineer.

In Linn County, residents can see the locations of snowplows through an online map that can be found at LinnCountyIowa.gov.

The City of Cedar Rapids posts official notices regarding snow emergencies, snow event timelines, and garbage collection changes on the City’s website at CityofCR.com/Snow and on the city’s Facebook page.

Linn County sends text and email updates about its response to snow events. Subscribe to receive the updates by visiting LinnCountyIowa.gov/NotifyMe.