This week will feature warm to hot weather in Southern Manitoba, a trend which is expected to continue into the long weekend.
A ridge of high pressure will be in place over Manitoba on Monday and Tuesday of this week. This ridge will pump warm air into the province, allowing high temperatures to reach the high twenties and even low thirties. Monday will be quite nice, with temperatures in the high twenties over all of Southern Manitoba. Humidity levels on Monday will remain low, making the day rather comfortable. By Tuesday the humidity will increase somewhat, but will still remain reasonable even as temperatures climb to around thirty degrees (except in Western Manitoba where the air will be a bit more tropical). A cold front will slice through the province on Wednesday, knocking down humidity levels with a strong westerly wind. However, temperatures won’t drop off by much, with highs staying in the mid to upper twenties on Wednesday.
You may be wondering if this heat will generate thunderstorm activity as the cold front moves in on Wednesday. The short answer to that question is maybe, but I will elucidate. There will certainly be severe storms in Saskatchewan on Monday and Tuesday this week, but the threat in Manitoba is less clear. At this time it looks like our best chance for seeing storms will be on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning as storms that develop over Saskatchewan and North Dakota drift into Manitoba during the overnight period. Even though these storms will happen after dark they may still be severe as they will have warm and humid air to work with. There may also be the risk of thunderstorms during the day on Monday and Tuesday in portions of west-central Manitoba (i.e. Swan River, The Pas, etc). Since these regions aren’t our focus, I won’t go into much further detail than that. Nocturnal thunderstorms may drift into Western Manitoba on Monday night or Tuesday morning, but aren’t expected to impact the majority of Southern Manitoba.
After the cold front passes through on Wednesday there will be a couple of days where the heat “reloads” ahead of the long-weekend. In other words Thursday and Friday will be a bit cooler, although still warm, with temperatures more in the mid twenties. It is expected that hot weather will crank up again for the long-weekend, with present modelling suggesting that temperatures near thirty degrees will be possible on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. It is too early to be certain in those predictions, but at this point the long-weekend is looking rather nice…if you like hot weather that is.
