Winter made a defiant return Monday, bringing several inches of snowfall to parts of the Raccoon Valley Radio-listening area.

Weatherology Meteorologist Ray Miller tells Raccoon Valley Radio significant amounts of snow fell over the course of a few hours Monday, prompting a snow squall warning for counties along the Interstate-80 corridor, including Dallas County. He explains what a snow squall warning is.

“You get these fairly narrow bands of snowfall, but they’re fairly intense bands of snowfall. They can reduce visibility, they make travel very dangerous because they develop very quickly, and it dissipates very quickly. It’s really hard to get a lot of advanced notice out in terms of warning folks about them.”

Miller says about seven-inches of snow fell in Guthrie Center, whereas about three-inches fell in places such as Panora and Minburn. According to National Weather Service Observer Tim Pound, Jefferson had about one-inch of snowfall. However, due to the warm ground and above freezing temperatures, Miller notes that there was not much accumulation on the roadways and travel was not greatly impacted.

“Mainly what we’re concerned about here with this system as it moves through was just the reduced visibility. You had – in some cases – visibility less than a quarter-of-a-mile, making travel rather treacherous, and not so much the accumulation on the roadways.”

Going forward, Miller says there are chances for rain and thunderstorms tomorrow and Thursday, with another possibility of a rain/snow mixture by Sunday and Monday. The Raccoon Valley Radio Network also provides road conditions updates and other winter weather-related information.