The storm that brought a blizzard, significant precipitation, and strong winds to Iowa last week also featured a very deep low pressure center that passed over southeastern Iowa. A measure of how strong the low pressure center was can be found by comparing observed sea level pressure readings at an airport to its historical record. The featured chart does just that for Burlington, Iowa and finds that for March, the most recent system had the lowest pressure reading on record for the site. There have been deeper low pressure systems over Iowa during March on a handful of other dates and including some that predated observations from this station. Interestingly, another very strong low pressure system, perhaps with a similarly low pressure reading to the storm last week, is forecast to impact Iowa this coming Friday.

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