It’s safe to say that alongside all the smoke from forest fires raging across the Northern Prairies, summer has arrived. With daytime highs in the mid- to high–20’s for the coming 5 days and overnight lows similarly warm at nearly 5°C above normal, the cool weather of just under two weeks ago[1] is long gone!
Hot and increasingly humid weather is in store for the second half of the week, however temperatures will likely fall short of what their potential is given the haze and smoke that will advect over the southern half of the province from the fires to our northwest in Saskatchewan & Alberta.
Today will be a mild day with highs in the mid–20’s or so and some haze moving in. There’s a marginal chance of some isolated thundershower activity, but the haze & smoke aloft will likely keep things just cool enough that any convective activity is halted or severely limited.
The humidity will remain mild today with dew point values around 15–17°C. Expect temperatures to dip to around 16°C tonight.
Thursday and Friday will both be warm days with more noticeable humidity present. Dew point values are expected to climb into the upper teens, making it start to feel a bit swampy out there. There may be a bit of a reprieve from the smoke on Thursday, with just a bit of haze around, but it looks like more noticeable smoke will return for Friday. Both days will see highs in the mid- to upper–20’s, but with a bit of a footnote[2] that the high could be a degree or two higher or lower depending on exactly how much smoke manages to advect into the region for Friday.
Wet Weekend Ahead?
Weather models are beginning to come into agreement of a fairly significant storm system impacting the Prairies over the weekend.
It’s still early to say, but it looks like there’s the potential for elevated convection on Saturday night, perhaps bringing some night-time thunderstorm activity to Winnipeg, and Sunday looks like it may bring a few showers to the region with a bit of remnant instability. We’ll keep tabs on this system as we head towards the weekend and have an update in Friday morning’s blog post!
