Bundle up Falcons! During this last week Iowa faced a harsh cold front, seeing some of the coldest temperatures in a while. Cold fronts are a weather phenomenon where a mass of cold air pushes under warm air, forcing the warmer air to rise. This causes these to be a harsh boundary line between the cool and warm air. According to the Center for Science Education, “Fronts move across the Earth’s surface over multiple days. The direction of movement is often guided by high winds.” This cold front specifically had high wind speeds, reaching upwards of 25 miles per hour, leading the temperature feeling much lower than it actually was.
Early morning on Tuesday the 21st, Davenport was predicted to experience a -17 degree wind chill, the temperature ended up reaching a low of -12 with over 11 MPH winds, resulting in a -21 degrees ‘feels like’ temperature. During these cold conditions the public is typically advised on what to do, such as bringing pets indoors, making sure you have a travel safety kit with food and supplies, and checking on vulnerable family and friends. But these aren’t the only things some West students do during the extreme cold.
Junior Âvalon Basala does a few things differently, “I have to let my car warm up for like, twenty minutes, and I have to watch it the whole time to make sure it doesn’t get stolen,” said Basala. During the cold weather countless businesses adjusted their hours or were even closed for the day to ensure their employees safety. “My shift was two hours shorter, I didn’t mind because of how cold it was in the morning,” said Basala.
This cold front was a surprise for many Iowans, following two unusually warm days during the winter. This specific cold front brought a large mass of arctic air to the midwest region leading to multiple extreme cold weather advisories to Buchanan, Delaware, Dubuque, Benton, Linn, Jones, Jackson, Iowa, Johnson, Cedar and Clinton as well as many other counties. The Davenport Community School District closed all of their schools because of the weather as well as other local schools within the Bettendorf and Pleasant Valley School Districts. Despite the cold temperatures, most students looked forward to an extra day off of their already long weekend.
