Various weather-related warnings were issued across the United States on Sunday due to extreme cold and winter weather—which includes Iowa ahead of the all-important primary caucuses in the state on Monday.
National Weather Service data shows there has never been a colder Iowa caucus night than what’s forecast for Jan. 15. The previous coldest was in 2004, when the high temperature for that year’s Jan. 19 caucuses was 16 degrees.
Iowa Republicans will confront the frigid and potentially dangerously low temperatures when they kick off the 2024 election cycle, a record-breaking forecast that might complicate candidates’ hopes of making their own history if the cold depresses voter turnout.
“We may not warm above zero degrees on Monday,” Des Moines-based meteorologist Chad Hahn told The Associated Press. “I would not be surprised if we don’t get above minus-20 degrees for wind chills beginning on Sunday.”
President Donald Trump has held huge leads in Iowa polls among Republican voters over the past two months. The final Des Moines Register/NBC News poll before the caucuses found he was supported by nearly one-half of likely caucus-goers compared with 20 percent for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and 16 percent for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
But despite the cold, the GOP candidates are publicly expressing optimism that their supporters will show up no matter how bad the weather is. But the snow and cold have already wreaked havoc on the candidates’ schedules, thwarting their plans to crisscross Iowa and make their final pitches to voters.
The frigid feels-like may make it harder for GOP candidates to turn out their supporters, already a tall order with the demands of a caucus. Unlike a primary election, where voters can cast their ballot throughout the day, caucus-goers have to show up at a specific time and location that’s likely not their typical polling place.
Barring a major ice storm, Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann told the AP, Iowans won’t be dissuaded by low temperatures. “It’s going to go on, no matter what,” he predicted.
President Trump’s campaign had promised to ensure “people are well taken care of” this weekend and that people are able to get inside venues in a quick and orderly fashion.
Weather Alerts Across the US
Aside from Iowa, wind chill warnings and advisories were issued across much of the Midwest and Plains on Sunday, while winter storm warnings and advisories were issued for parts of the southern United States. The weather service noted that about 95 million Americans will fall within one of those advisories.The harsh cold is part of “an expansive area of Arctic high pressure spilling out of the Canadian prairie, which is responsible for dangerously cold temperatures extending from the Pacific Northwest all the way into the Rust Belt,” the weather service said.
“Further south, wind chills plummeting below minus 30 degrees will be found across the Rockies, central Plains, and mid-Mississippi Valley,” a bulletin from the agency said. “Unfortunately, the dangerous cold weather could stick around for the next several days as reinforcing cold air plunges the front southward, which could yield additional record-breaking, dangerously low temperatures over parts of the Midwest and Deep South through mid-late next week.”
“Brutal cold aside, the Arctic air in place will also set the stage for significant wintry precipitation to develop over the Mid-South later today with a mess of snow, sleet, and freezing rain all expected,” the National Weather Service said Sunday. The current forecast calls for 3 to 6 inches of snowfall over parts of the Ozarks region into the Tennessee Valley, according to the agency.
