The chart below is the high temperatures from December 1 through today. Early in December we had about a week with temperatures below normal. By the way the white line is the normal high for the day. Most of December and now into early January our high temperatures have been above normal. 
The two maps below show the snow depth as of today (bottom left) to last year on this day (bottom right).
There is just 16% of the lower 48 states covered with snow. Compare that with 2011 with 45%. Here are is a look back through 2005.
16% Today
45% 2011
56% 2010
42% 2009
35% 2008
28% 2007
27% 2006
55% 2005
Here is how much snow has fallen so far and how much we had up to this point last year. WOW what a difference.
Location: This Season/Last Season/Normal to Date
Waterloo: 2.6″/24.9″/14.2″
Dubuque: 2.6″/27.6″/16.5″
Cedar Rapids: 0.8″/13.0″/17.4″
Iowa City: 1.0″/10.0″/11.7″
Snow facts for Waterloo:
Least Snow in a Season (Dec/Jan/Feb): 11.6” 1967-1968
Consecutive Days of No Measured Snow: 286 February 24 – December 6, 1914
Least Snow Calendar Year (Jan 1-Dec 31): 6.5” 1922
Latest Initial Occurrence of Trace: December 6, 1948
Latest Initial Occurrence of 0.1”: December 20, 2004
Latest Initial Occurrence of 1”: February 10, 1944
Posted under Precipitation Totals, Records, Winter Weather
This post was written by Schnack on January 6, 2012
At my house on the west side of Cedar Rapids we have not had a 1″ snowfall in 11 months… pretty remarkable. The last one was February 6th, 2011. The CR airport apparently had 1+ inches from a storm in late February, but it skirted mostly south of the city. We got a burst of heavy snow in mid April, but I finished with 0.9″.
Good article! I noticed that 1922 was listed as 6.5 inches. However according to xmACIS, this value should be 9.5 inches.
January 1.0″
February 3.5″
March 2.6″
November 0.9″
December 1.5″
Jeff
Thanks for checking out the blog. I am using the number from the NWS. Here is the link I got the data from. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/dmx/Waterloo%20Climate%20Data.pdf
My kids said there was a huge ring around the moon Saturday night. Do you know what this was?
Laura
It was a halo around the moon. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/moonhalo.html