Southern Manitoba played host to almost all the different kinds of weather out there, with many locations seeing almost any combination of thunderstorms, hail, rain, drizzle, snow and blowing snow. A system that brought heavy snowfall to Western Manitoba and the Interlake region as well as thunderstorms and rain to the Red River Valley and Southeast Manitoba has trundled off into Ontario; we’re not out of the woods yet, though, as another system is set to quickly make it’s way into the province by tomorrow morning.
For today, we’ll see cloudy skies with a chance of a few remnant flurries this morning. We’ll see a daytime highs of only 2°C or 3°C through the RRV. Another low pressure system is already on it’s way to Manitoba, however, with the parent upper trough making landfall on the Oregon coast last night. This trough will advect eastwards and rotate northwards into the Central Prairies, bringing with it a warm front that will bisect the Prairies and slowly push eastwards.
This warm front is expected to push through the Winnipeg and the Red River Valley through the day on Thursday. Current indications are that we’ll be far enough south that we won’t have to worry about snow, that should be reserved for areas a bit further north in the Interlake region. We’ll see rain push in tomorrow morning around mid-morning and clear out by early evening. Rainfall totals currently look to be fairly uniform through the Red River Valley with totals around 10-15mm, however it does look like there’s a good chance for some enhanced convective areas which will result in fairly heavy showers interspersed through the general area of rain.We’ll enjoy warmer temperatures through the rest of the week, with the warm air pushing through bringing our daytime highs up to around 10°C.
We’re not out of the woods quite yet, though, as another low is forecast to track through the southern Interlake region bringing rain to areas along and north of the Trans-Canada Highway Friday night and Saturday morning. Current indications are that regions south of the Trans-Canada Highway will only see some scattered showers with this system.
With a the passage of Tuesday’s weather system, North America has transitioned into a much different weather pattern that that which brought us our record-busting heat wave. With the blocking high collapsed over the SE United States, the summer-like heat will be contained further south in the Central and Southern Plains of the United States. Fortunately, the bitterly cold Arctic air that’s still omnipresent north of 60 will remain bottled up. So what does that mean for us? As the image above shows, ensemble forecasts are showing a moderate chance of above normal temperatures, however nothing nearly as certain as what was being predicted a couple weeks ago. The long-wave pattern has shifted to favor more frequent disturbances tracking through the Prairies, which should result in temperatures that may still be slightly above normal, but we’ll likely also see more precipitation than we had through much of March.
