(Radio Iowa) – Sitting in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace with your sweetheart might be the best option on this Valentine’s Day. National Weather Service Meteorologist Craig Cogil says another snowstorm will hit the state today (Friday). “We’re going to see winds increase quite quickly from the south by late morning into the afternoon, and that is likely to produce blowing snow, especially out in rural areas,” Cogil says. “With the winds from the south, it’s really going to impact those east-west roads with those snow crawlers going across the road, or maybe even some small drifts.” He says the winds and blowing snow are just part of the problem.

“It’s going to make travel a little hazardous all by itself. But then we’re also going to look at a brief period of moderate to possibly even heavy snow that moves quickly from southwest to northeast across Central Iowa during the afternoon hours,” he says. Cogil says we could see one to two inches of new snow which could also impact travel briefly during that time. The only good news from the storm is temperatures should lift out of the single digits. “With the south winds, we are going to see temperatures warm tomorrow. They should get up into the mid to upper 20s, maybe even some lower 30s down in southern Iowa, nothing real balmy, but certainly a little more normal than what we’re seeing now,” Cogil says. He says we could see another system move into the state Saturday with more snowfall. “Maybe two, three inches with that across the central part of the state. And then once that exits off on Saturday evening, we’re going to see a much colder air move into the state and likely remain for much of next week,” he says. Cogil says the snow contributes to the cold temperatures.

“With snow on the ground, especially, you know, during the night time, if your skies are clear and the winds are relatively light it really allows the heat to escape out, and so we really cool off colder than what you would normally get if you didn’t have that snow on the ground,” he says. “You know, it’s been the fortunate thing this winter is we haven’t seen a lot of snow on the ground, so it’s kept our temperatures relatively warm.” Cogil says it was inevitable that winter would push out the warmer weather.  “It waited two and a half, or almost two and a half months to get here, but it’s here, and it’s going to let us know about it for the next week at least,” Cogil says.

Cogil says the next round of snow will likely be a little bit heavier than the light stuff we got earlier in the week. And he says we could even see it mixing in with a little bit of sleet or ice pellets.