DES MOINES, Iowa -- What a difference a week's going to make when it comes to Iowa weather...
"Areas of the far southeast portions of the state are most likely to get into the 50's, and if someone's extremely lucky they could touch 60," says National Weather Service Meteorologist Allan Curtis.
Right now, the Weather Service says Thursday's forecast to be the warmest day of the week.
Curtis says how warm, it actually gets depends on how much snow's on the ground.
"Snow is typically going to be the big limiter on how warm we can get on types of days. That's why areas of Northern Iowa probably still only going to be in the mid- to upper 30's. That's a whole lot of snow they've got to get of first," he says.
Curtis says with little snow on the ground to melt, Southwest Iowa will be the warmest part of the state.
The unusually warm weather late this week comes after last week's sub-zero temperatures and dangerous wind chills.
The Weather Service says precipitation chances Thursday will mainly be wintry mixes affecting the northwest, northern, and eastern parts of the state. On Saturday, they say additional wintry mixes may be seen mainly across eastern areas.
As for the first few weeks of the new year, Curtis says temperatures across Iowa are trending toward normal.
"The next couple of weeks, generally speaking, look to be more towards what we call normal for this time of year--a little on the cool side with highs right around freezing for large parts of the state," he says.
Image from the National Weather Service, Johnston, IA.