Gazette Daily News Briefing, January 18
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Wednesday, January 18.
Rain will come Wednesday afternoon, with some sleet and snow probable later on. According to the National Weather Service, there will be a 90 percent chance of rain in the Cedar Rapids area, mainly starting after 2 p.m. The high will be near 36 degrees, with wind gusts as high as 30 mph. At around 9 p.m. Wednesday night the rain will mix with sleet, and as the temperature drops, it will become a mixture of rain and snow. This will continue into a chance for more snow Thursday morning.
We have a bit more information on Monday’s extremely rare Iowa tornadoes after officials nailed down their trails.
Two tornadoes touched down in Iowa Monday afternoon. They were the first January tornadoes Iowa has seen in more than 50 years,
The first of two tornadoes touched down two miles northeast of Williamsburg at 2:01 p.m. and lasted until 2:09 p.m. It traveled northeast for 4.7 miles, with a peak wind speed of 90 mph.
It was rated a 1, or EF1, on the Enhanced Fujita scale. The tornado caused minor damage to a cattle shelter and tree damage at a farmstead west of Highway 151. It also blew a semi-trailer over on Interstate 80, according to NWS Meteorologist Tim Gross.
The second tornado, observed by a storm chaser, touched down only briefly. It was spotted north of Ely, and didn’t cause any observable damage, Gross said. It was rated EFU because its peak wind speed and path length and width are unknown.
For a second time in less than a week, Iowans packed a legislative hearing room Tuesday at the Iowa Capitol to sound off on Gov. Kim Reynolds’ private school financial assistance proposal, which Republican lawmakers seem intent on fast-tracking to a floor vote after the idea failed to pass in previous sessions.
More than a hundred individuals roughly split between supporters and opponents signed up to speak for up to two minutes each during the 90-minute hearing on House Study Bill 1. Hundreds more submitted written comments.
Earlier in the day, an Iowa House committee advanced a new chamber rule along party lines, with Democrats opposed, allowing the bill and others assigned to a newly formed House Education Reform Committee to bypass review by committees that review spending and tax issues, where the proposal’s financial impact would have been assessed.
Critics note the proposal does not provide an actual choice for students living in rural areas who have few, if any, access points to schools other than their local public schools. According to the Iowa Department of Education, there are 40 counties with no private schools, nearly all of them rural counties. There were 33,692 students enrolled in 183 private schools in Iowa for the 2022-2023 school year, according to state data.
Proponents have said the proposal would expand the market for private schools, meaning new schools could open in those areas.
If you were planning on watching Northwestern and Iowa play basketball Wednesday night, COVID-19 had other plans.
The Northwestern-Iowa men’s basketball game scheduled for Wednesday night in Iowa City has been postponed because COVID-19 health and safety protocols within the Northwestern program.
The two schools will work with the Big Ten on rescheduling options. All distributed tickets for the game will be valid if the game is able to be rescheduled.
The Chris Street special one-hour documentary that was scheduled to debut on Big Ten Network following Wednesday game will now be shown immediately following the Ohio State/Nebraska men’s basketball game on Wednesday at approximately 8 p.m. (CT). Following the documentary, the network will re-air the Michigan-Iowa basketball game from Jan. 31, 1993.
