First winter storm of the season blankets Charles City with four inches of snow

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Area residents got to break out the shovels and fire up the snowblowers for the first time this season on Wednesday morning.

Charles City received about 4 inches of snow from the highly-anticipated winter storm that moved through Iowa on Tuesday. There were reports of 3-4 inches of new snow on the ground throughout Floyd County.

There was heavier snow across central Iowa along Interstate 80. Nearly 10 inches of snow was reported at the Des Moines Airport and some areas around Cedar Rapids reported as much as a foot of snow. There was also a glaze of ice from freezing rain in some areas of southern Iowa.

The majority of north central and northeastern Iowa saw somewhere between 5 to 9 inches of snowfall.

The snow started to fall in Charles City around noon on Tuesday and lasted until well after dark. Multiple inches of snow accumulated quickly in some areas, leading to deteriorating road conditions.

Floyd County Secondary Roads Superintendent Tim Laube reported that the first big snow removal day of the season went smoothly, and there were no major concerns.

“We had trucks out at 5 a.m. and got the roads cleared off,” Laube said. “Everything went as expected.”

The Floyd County Sheriff’s Office reported no major incidents or accidents in the county due to the weather conditions.

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures for the rest of the week and through the weekend are expected to be in the mid-to-upper 20s during the day, with overnight lows in single digits. Although there is a slight chance of some light snow on New Year’s Day, there is no other precipitation in the forecast through Sunday.