A blizzard is impacting the upper midwest from Iowa northwest through portions of Minnesota and the Dakotas. Here in Iowa, a 30-40 car pileup closed I-35 north of Hwy 30 due to the blizzard conditions. About a dozen other highways are also closed in Iowa due to accidents and drifting. 5.8" of snow has fallen so far at the Des Moines airport:

I experienced sustained white-out conditions near downtown Des Moines earlier this afternoon. One of the biggest events of the winter season here.

Check out this time-lapse video of our intercept of the Aurora, Nebraska tornado. You can hear the sirens wailing in Aurora at the end of the video.

A significant severe weather event is forecasted across the upper mississippi valley tonight with a risk of significant tornadoes in northern Iowa:

We'll be chasing this later today so check back for updates!

We tracked this highly photogenic tornado for around 8 miles. The tornado was headed straight for Aurora, NE which prompted a rare Tornado Emergency issued by the NWS. Fortunately it lifted just before it got to town.

Prior to initiation we had time to check out the view (and struggling convection along a boundary) from the bluffs in western Iowa:

We'll be live streaming this chase later this afternoon so stay tuned!

There's a risk of all forms of severe weather later today across the plains. In particular there's a risk of very large hail and the SPC has outlined a 10% tornado risk in central Kansas:

We aren't able to chase today but it looks like there will be a couple of chase opportunities this week so stay tuned!