Iowans are used to cold weather, but the arctic blast that’s spread across much of the country is the biggest one to happen at the same time as the caucuses.
The Iowa caucuses began in 1972. That year, the high in Des Moines was 25 degrees and scattered snow fell around the state.
Since then, the warmest caucus day was 49 degrees on Feb. 20, 1984. The coldest, in 2004, had a high of just 16 degrees with wind chills in the single digits.
That’ll seem almost tropical compared to what’s coming on Monday.
Highs throughout Iowa will struggle to even get close to 0 degrees–and that’s just the actual temperature. Caucus-goers are going to face frigid wind chills in the -20s while they’re heading to and from their local precincts in the evening.
Here’s a snapshot of the conditions people had to brave through to caucus.
If there’s any good weather news in the Hawkeye State, it’s that they’ll have dry weather on Monday. That’ll be a welcome change after two powerful winter storms socked parts of the state with heavy snow in the days before. The bad weather forced Republican candidates to cancel some events.
Our team of meteorologists dives deep into the science of weather and breaks down timely weather data and information. To view more weather and climate stories, check out our weather blogs section.