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Many Iowans know that the girls high school state basketball tournament has a reputation for bad weather – winter storms specifically.Is that reputation deserved?To answer that question, we dug through nearly 90 years of tournament weather history.Girls’ state basketball goes back over 100 years, but early tournaments were held in different towns around Iowa and sometimes much later in spring than the present day.Because of that, we limited our analysis to tournaments held after 1936.2024 Iowa girls state basketball tournamentState results, schedules for all five classesHow to watch and livestream games from Wells Fargo ArenaSnowstorms aren’t that frequentSince then, only three girls' state tournaments have coincided with “winter-storm” level snowfall in Des Moines – meaning at least 6 inches over a two-day period.Only one out of five tournaments experienced snowfall of at least 1 inch.More than half of the tournaments (49 total) have been completely snow-free.Why does the girls’ tournament get a bad rap, then?Several bad years in a rowIt seems possible that many Iowans began associating the state tournament with snow during the 1960s.Following the 1959 championship game between Gladbrook and West Central (Maynard), snow famously forced thousands of people to spend the night in Veterans Memorial Auditorium.The next year, more than 7 inches of snow fell in Des Moines over four days of basketball action.Measurable snow would end up affecting five consecutive tournaments between 1959 and 1963.Top 10 Snowiest Girls State Tournaments1999 – 12.3 inches1948 – 10.0 inches2013 – 9.4 inches1960 – 7.6 inches1959 – 4.3 inches2008 – 4.2 inches1963 – 4.0 inches1961 – 3.8 inches1940 – 3.7 inches1962 – 2.7 inches (held in Waterloo)Ironically, there’s been no state tournament snow in Des Moines since that 2013 storm.The last 10 years have been the longest snow-free stretch since the tournament moved to late February and early March.Notable caveatsIt’s worth noting that all these statistics apply only to snow, only to Des Moines, and only during the specific days of the tournament.The 1998 tournament followed an 11-inch snowstorm the weekend before. Other years brought heavy snow to Iowa but spared the Des Moines area. In 1990, it wasn't snow but a historic ice storm that crippled much of the state during tournament action.This year’s outlookWe had a slight chance of snow this week but, instead, just a serious drop in temperatures and some dangerous wind gusts. After Des Moines and several other cities across the state broke daily records for high temperatures Monday, Wednesday likely won't even reach 32 degrees — with wind chills in the teens. It will quickly climb back to well-above-normal levels, with highs in the 50s Thursday, 60s Friday and 70s Saturday and Sunday.