Remembering the Potent 2009 Iowa Blizzard (credit: This Day in Weather History)

DISCUSSION: As we turn the clocks back to December 8th, 2009, we arrive at the occurrence of a fairly memorable snowstorm in recent Midwest history.  This particular winter weather event was somewhat intense due to the fact that there was an effective transport of moisture out of the Gulf of Mexico northward towards the Northern Plains states.  This effective transport of moisture out of the South-Central United States allowed for an effective development of a deep and persistent lower-tropospheric snow growth zone across nearly the entire state of Iowa and then some.  As you can see from the national warning and advisory map attached above, the impacts of this winter storm were quite widespread with winter storm warnings extending across parts of Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri.  Thus, this was quite a far-reaching winter weather event which clearly had far-ranging impacts beyond the state of Iowa to say the very least.

To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here!

©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz