DAZED AND CONFUSED? BIG STORM ON THE WAY...

Holy cow, what a remarkable day Wednesday turned out to be. Every station in my local area had a record high for the date, several even broke all time records for February. This squirrel's picture was taken in Cedar Rapids. Note the spikes of green grass and the confused look on its face. Can't blame the little dude, we were all a bit "nutty"! Thanks to my man Brandon Marshall for the pic.

Here's a plot of weather stations at or near record highs at 3:00pm Wednesday afternoon. Wow!

As I mentioned, every station in my area set records. That's a big deal but what really impressed me is how much we crushed the old records by. Iowa City with a 77 beat the old record of 63 by 14 degrees. They literally destroyed the previous mark. That type of thrashing is highly unprecedented.

Additionally, 3 of the 4 major cities in my TV DMA had all-time February warmth. That included Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, and Dubuque. Waterloo at 69 has its 2nd all-time warmest February high.

To add some context to just how warm it was, the high of 76 in Cedar Rapids is the average high June 1st...a full 40 degrees above normal. Are you kidding me?

Well, the fat lady is singing and the pattern is changing to one far more typical of late February. The fun gets underway Thursday as a deep low cranks up over Kansas and heads towards SE Iowa. You can see the energy coming into the southwest on the water vapor image below.

By Thursday night the NAM4k shows the surface low is deepening and crossing Iowa. Rain and thunderstorms are occurring in much of Iowa and Illinois. In the cold sector you can see the snow that's hammering the upper Midwest.

By midnight Friday the storm is into Wisconsin. Wind and cold air are advancing across the central U.S. The deformation band snows are starting to sweep into eastern Iowa and NW Illinois. Also, you can see a squall line out ahead of the cold front blitzing Michigan and Ohio.

The Storm Prediction Center has that region outlooked for severe storms.

On the cold side of the system snows will mount up and strong winds up to 40mph could really blow it around. A blizzard watch is out for parts of Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota in green. Winter storm watches are flying in blue.