Charles City sets record for all-time monthly snowfall

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

It’s official. This February is the snowiest of any month in Charles City in recorded history.

National Weather Service records show the city received 0.2 inches of snow on Tuesday and 0.8 inches on Wednesday, pushing the total for the month to 33 inches.

The previous record for monthly snowfall in Charles City had been held by March 1951, at 32.6 inches. National Weather Service records go back 127 years, to 1892.

Justin Glisan, the Iowa state climatologist with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, told the Press that a combination of atmospheric conditions has led to the snowy month.

“If you remember, the end of January we had that arctic intrusion when the polar vortex spilled out,” Glisan said. “After that, the polar jet had a very active cycle. Imagine big meanders in the jet coming over Iowa — just every four or five days we had systems moving through that would give us snowfall.

“The active jet pattern is responsible, partially, for that,” he said. “Also, we had what we call an atmospheric river from the Pacific, which is kind of like a mid-level moisture channel from the Pacific into the central United States.

“So we had the jet stream forcing systems through, and then we had ample moisture for those systems to use because of this conveyer belt,” Glisan said.

Despite the record set by February, it’s unlikely this winter will set a snowfall record.

In meteorological terms, winter is considered December through February, Glisan said.

The record for snowiest winter in Charles city was set in 1961-62, when that December, January and February received a total of 62.6 inches of snow.

Currently, Charles City has received 46.6 inches in those three months so far, which means we’d need to receive more than 16 inches on the final day of the month for a new record — an unlikely event, looking at the forecast.

Still, Glisan said, that 46.6 inches puts this winter in second place as snowiest ever recorded for the city.

And, of course, as last year’s snowy March and snowfall-record-setting April proved, winter isn’t really confined to just three months.

Glisan said the forecast for the next couple of months is probably colder than normal, but as for precipitation there’s no real guidance.

“We call it EC — it’s an equal chance of above average or below average, so a flip of the coin, effectively,” Glisan said.

Based on trends in recent years, however, “what we’ve been seeing is the possibility of a slightly wetter than average early spring into summertime,” he said.