Gazette Daily News Briefing, December 27
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for December 27, 2023.
There will be a slight chance for snow for the first half of the day on Wednesday, mostly before 11 a.m. If it does arrive, it will most likely only be a dusting of snow.
The high temperature in the Cedar Rapids area will be 38 degrees with cloudy skies, according to the National Weather Service.
With a large swath of Eastern Iowa in extreme drought, the Christmas holidays brought a gift to thirsty cities and farms: steady rain.
In a 48-hour period ending at 8 a.m. Tuesday, most locations in Eastern Iowa received at least a half inch of rain — and some considerably more, according to reports to the National Weather Service.
Official readings in Cedar Rapids (.58 inches) and Iowa City (.60 inches) were on the low end of the scale. Reports to the weather service said that Williamsburg received 1.01 inches, and that some communities came close to that level.
Iowa is entering its 189th week in a row of abnormally dry and drought conditions — making it the longest drought in the state since the 1950s.
Mellow Mushroom announced it will be closing its Coralville location at the end of the year.
The Coralville site will close Dec. 31 after almost nine years in business at Coral Ridge Mall.
The quirky, psychedelic-themed restaurant opened at the mall in February 2015, replacing the space previously held by Bennigan’s.
A former elementary school building in the northern Iowa town of Rockford was destroyed by fire last week.
The fire was reported at around 10 p.m. Friday, according to a Facebook post by the Floyd County Emergency Management Agency. First responders found the building, at 205 Second Ave. NW, fully engulfed when they arrived.
Every fire department in Floyd County responded to the scene, as well as sheriff’s deputies, EMS personnel and Floyd County Search and Rescue. The fire also drew the Greene Fire Department from neighboring Butler County.
According to assessor’s records, the school was built in 1900. The emergency management agency wrote that the building replaced another school that was built in 1873 and lost to fire in 1899.
