Severe Weather Teaser In January

 

What do you envision on January 8 in Eastern Iowa? Snow drifts, ice and biting cold. Most of the time, yes. But on the evening of January 8, 2026 the answer was no. Something considerably different. A large area of rain had trained northeastward up from a very warm and moist southern region around midday, dropping just under an inch in Cedar Rapids. Storm chasers had taken note of this highly unusual condition ahead of time from the Storm Prediction Center's (categorical, tornado, wind and hail) convective outlook posted at 6:35 am CST, shown above--so no big surprise there. 

The surprise was that just after 7:15 pm small clusters of storms continuing on from Oklahoma and Missouri had moved into favorable conditions in Eastern Iowa, producing a severe weather warned polygon (shown in the 7:22 pm Radarscope image above) that stretched from near Victor, Iowa to Cedar Rapids, setting off weather radios. The National Weather Service (NWS) even warned, "remain alert for a possible tornado!"

7:31 pm CST. All of the heavier activity stayed west and north of my spotting location on the eastern border of Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids. This image looks northeast as this particular stormy area (with lightning) had passed and was moving away.

7:37 pm. Looking west from the park at turbulent, fast moving clouds in the direction of the core of the severe-warned storm. Clouds were moving left-to-right in this image. Wind speeds at this location around this time peaked at around 40 mph, well below the 58 mph severe criteria.

7:39 pm. Looking east. Some of the fast moving clouds were not thick, often with open gaps, allowing some of the night sky to peek through. Above, the two stars Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini and the planet Jupiter can be seen at center. Amazingly, at 8:20 pm, the temperature here topped out at 58.5 degrees F, with 54.9 degree dew point--that's springlike conditions in January! Nikon Z6ii camera.

A January 9 IES LSR storm report map, showing the scope of this rare system. The state of Oklahoma confirmed four tornado touchdowns, and Mississippi confirmed two. Only twice in Iowa history have tornadoes occurred in the month of January.