By AccuWeather staff writer
Updated Dec. 31, 2020 8:25 AM EST
The first of two rounds of wintry weather struck the central Plains and Midwest of the United States on Tuesday, delivering mountains of snow while also featuring thundersnow and a phenomenon that brightened the winter night sky slightly.
The first round of a double-barreled storm swept through the central Plains and Midwest on Tuesday, coating roads in a thick layer of ice and adding up to a foot of snow in some areas for good measure.
The snow didn't roll into the central U.S. alone, however. Tuesday night, thundersnow rolled into the area of Tiffin, Iowa, recorded by one Twitter user who reported seeing multiple bright lightning strikes off camera, followed by "ominous thunder" that he described as "louder than your average summer, garden-variety thunderstorm."
The Iowa Department of Transportation reported that their crews had been out all throughout the night clearing the roads. While travel conditions had improved by 4 a.m. CST, there were still some roads partially to completely covered with snow and ice.
Despite the travel headaches, the snowfall brought plenty of fun for puppies from Nebraska to Minnesota as videos surfaced on social media showing them racing around and showing off new snow boots.
Two dogs play in Rochester, Minnesota, after a snowstorm swept through the central U.S. Plains and into the Midwest on Tuesday, Dec. 29. (Twitter/@VoteWojcik)
The storm is also the one that brought 7 inches to Big Bear Lake east of Los Angeles and 7.3 inches to Frazier Park north of Ventura, California, within 24 hours from Saturday morning into Sunday morning before tracking across the Four Corners and into the Midwest from Saturday into Tuesday, according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Nicole LoBiondo.
After the storm exited the Rockies and entered the central Plains Tuesday, a band of heavy snow and windy conditions developed across much of Iowa by Tuesday evening.
"At this point in time, the main part of the storm was up in the Canadian Prairies, ushering arctic air into the northern and central Plains," LoBiondo said.
After this air collided with humid, warm air flowing up from the Gulf of Mexico, it resulted in an area of snow, sleet and freezing rain in parts of northern Kansas and central Iowa Tuesday afternoon, she added.
An image from an Iowa snow plow camera shot from I-35 just south of Des Moines. (Iowa DOT)
While some areas received heavy snowfall, like the 9.6 inches measured by the Des Moines Airport, the mixing of wintry precipitation from snowfall to sleet and freezing rain stinted snowfall totals, LoBiondo said. Drakesville, Iowa, which got around 5 inches of snowfall, is an example of this. Farther east, however, in Mount Carroll, Illinois, mainly snow fell, resulting in 11.2 inches of snow recorded.
A time-lapse video of snowfall over Urbandale, Iowa, on Tuesday, Dec. 29. (Twitter/@FitzTimothy)
Areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota also got snow generally in lower amounts than reports from Iowa. Their reports ranged from about 2.5 to 6 inches, but areas closer to Lake Michigan were able to pick up higher totals.
The Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport reported 4.8 inches, but there were higher amounts reported around the suburbs, including 8 inches of snowfall at the Wisconsin State Fair Park. Cornucopia, Wisconsin, a town on the northern end of the state bordering Lake Superior, received a total of 9 inches from the storm as of 7:45 CST Wednesday morning. Sullivan, Wisconsin, which sits about 39 miles west of Milwaukee and Lake Michigan, accumulated about 8.1 inches.
This was primarily driven by the influx of moist, warm air from the Gulf of Mexico, LoBiondo said, adding that later on Wednesday would be the only day lake enhancement will be possible in Michigan since winds have turned more westward off the lake.
In one area of Iowa, the overcast skies contributed to a brighter night. A Twitter user posted a photo of the sky taken around 10:30 p.m. CST, showing a gray but slightly illuminated nighttime sky.
"So the sciencey explanation is that snow has a higher albedo than a traditional grassy surface," LoBiondo said. "When there is any light pollution, i.e., from a full moon or from a nearby city, if there is snow cover on the ground, it reflects light more efficiently than if there was just a grassy surface."
"Albedo" refers to the proportion of light that is reflected by a surface, like how moonlight is the result of the sunlight reflected off the surface of the moon. As a result, a surface with a high albedo reflects a brighter light than a surface with a low albedo.
LoBiondo added that darker surfaces absorb light while lighter-colored surfaces generally reflect it -- something that is known as the "albedo effect."
Ironically, even an overcast sky can add to the effect of brightening the sky, as clouds have a higher albedo than just a clear night sky.
"Take, for example, in the State College area, if there are overcast skies or low-level clouds, you can see the light pollution from downtown more vibrantly than if the sky was clear," LoBiondo explained. "This is because the light pollution, more or less, bounces off the clouds and is reflected back to the surface, and this light is then reflected by the snow, so it seems bright."
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