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Continued Mild Weather

March 14, 2012April 3, 2015 Brad Leave a comment

The Red River Valley will continue to see temperatures well above normal for this time of year through the remainder of the week, with daytime highs expected to climb into the mid-teens by the end of the week.

Day	New Record	Old Record	Previous Record Year
Sun Mar. 11	12.8°C	12.5°C	1981
Mon Mar. 12	9.7°C	7.2°C	1922

Winnipeg has been basking in the warmth the past few days, setting new daily record high temperatures on Sunday and Monday. This record-setting “heat wave”, with temperatures a good 10-15°C above normal for this time of year, is a result of a persistant long-wave trough off the western coast of North America. While providing cool, wet weather to many places in B.C., Washington State and Oregon, the southwest flow aloft is allowing warm air to make it’s way up the Plains into the Southern Prairies.

Fortunately for us, the long-wave pattern isn’t expected to change any time soon. We’ll see a cooler day today with highs “only” around 7°C as a result of a weak cold front that passed through overnight. Temperatures will begin to rebound quickly, though, with warm air at 850mb spilling northwards into the southern Prairies on Thursday and Friday. This will push daytime highs up to the mid-to-high teens by the end of this week with a good chance that we’ll break record daily daytime highs on Friday and Saturday. Today will be breezy with west winds gusting potentially as high as 70-75km/h. Winds will be calmer for the remainder of the week.

And last but not least, a quick look to the long-term…

Long-Range Temperature Anomoly Forecast

Temperature Anomoly Outlook for March 21-28. Blues indicate hgiher probabilities fo cooler than normal weather while reds indicate higher probability of warmer than normal weather.

Ensemble forecasts continue to forecast near-100% chances of above normal temperatures right to the end of this month. What are normal temperatures for Winnipeg in a couple weeks? The average daytime high for March 28th is 3.0°C; so we could be enjoying mid-teen temperatures, perhaps even close to 20°C, for much of the rest of March.

So far March is living up to “in like a lion, out like a lamb.” Enjoy that beautiful weather!

Spring Continues

March 12, 2012April 3, 2015 Brad Leave a comment

The wonderful weather experienced on the weekend will continue into this week. Temperatures are expected to remain well above normal for the foreseeable future.

The NAEFS long-range forecast shows above-normal weather across much of North America

The NAEFS long-range forecast shows above-normal weather for Manitoba through mid to late March

Figuring out just how warm it will get this week is a challenge. There is snow in some parts of Southern Manitoba and bare ground in other parts. Areas that are snow-free will be warmer than those regions that still have snow. Weather models haven’t handled temperature forecasts very well lately, making forecasting even more difficult. Based on the warm temperatures experienced this weekend it appears that most days this week will have high temperatures in the high single digits or low double digits. Toward the end of the week we may have a shot at mid to high double-digit temperatures if most of the snow has disappeared as expected. Due to all the melting snow this week fog will be possible on most days. The additional water vapour that is added to the air due to the snow melt provides the necessary ingredient for dense fog patches to develop. Luckily with the sun becoming increasingly strong most areas of fog should dissipate fairly quick after the sun comes out.

A number of records were broken over the weekend due to the usually warm temperatures that occured. More daily high temperature records will likely be broken almost every day this week as conditions remain warm.

In the longer range there is no sign of a colder pattern. Most forecasts show warm weather continuing for at least the next 10 days. However, bear in mind that Winnipeg averages 10cm of snow in April, so don’t count on completely smooth sailing into summer.

Elsewhere in Weather News

Waterspout Makes Landfall in Hawaii

As Hawaii nears the end of its rainy season, very strong thunderstorms producing tornadoes over the Pacific Ocean made landfall on the islands this week, producing the first tornado to hit Hawaii in four years. On the morning of Friday March 9th, the tornado struck Kailua, one of the suburbs of Honolulu. From there, it moved inland for a mile-and-a-half before dissipating. There were no injuries associated with the tornado and only minor structural damage to a couple houses, where parts of roofs were torn off and windows damaged. Storm surveyors estimated the tornado to be an EF-0, with winds of 96km/h to 112km/h.

Photo Alt Text

The waterspout that made landfall caused significant damage to this house. (Source: Craig T.Kojima)

What was even more unusual to Hawaii with these thunderstorms is that they brought very large hailstones to the area, which is unheard of on the islands. The 30 minute hailstorm was described by Tom Birchard, a senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service (NWS) of Honolulu, as “unprecedented” and mentioned the three-inch hailstones are “likely record-breaking”.

Photo Alt Text

Small stream turned into raging river because of heavy rains in Hawaii. (Source: County of Maui.)

With the thunderstorms being nearly stationary and rain rates reaching over 75mm/h during the course of the day, mudslides prompted officials to close the roads. Schools were also closed and flights cancelled out of Kauai because of the heavy rains.

Thankfully Hawaii’s stormy weather is forecast to clear this upcoming week with partly cloudy skies and steady temperatures of 25°C. The high pressure that created a blocking pattern will move off, allowing the low pressure system to leave Hawaii.

Elsewhere in Weather News has been provided by Matt

The Warm-Up Begins

March 9, 2012April 3, 2015 Brad Leave a comment

After a quick punch of snow and some extremely strong winds, as high as 75km/h, yesterday, Winnipeg is set to see a dramatic warm-up. Strong southerly winds will develop ahead of an incoming warm front, resulting in a chilly day today, however by Saturday and into next week, we’ll be seeing temperatures we haven’t seen since January! (Well, that’s an odd statement…)

Saturday 18Z Precip/Sfc. Analysis

6hr. Precipitation & Surface Analysis valid at 18Z Saturday

Our brisk morning will be replaced by seasonal temperatures with a stiff southerly wind around 40km/h preceding the arrival of a strong warm front. This will produce wind chill values between around -20 and -15 through the day today. We’ll have a slight chance of some light flurries midday as an area of lift ahead of the warm front passes through, then winds will diminish overnight as the warm front passes and our temperatures will rise to around 0°C. This will mark the beginning of steadily climbing temperatures over the next few days. On Saturday we’ll reach temperatures near 4°C.

Further on, our temperatures will be highly dependant on our snow cover. Many models want to push our temperatures up to nearly 10°C in very short order, however if our extensive snow cover doesn’t erode rapidly, we’ll be stuck with temperatures in the 4-5°C range. That being said, the warm temperatures should result in fairly consistent snowmelt and given that we’re expected to be embedded in a warmer air mass for the next week, we should see daytime highs consistently between 5-10°C!

Spring at the Gates

March 7, 2012April 3, 2015 Brad Leave a comment

After the blast of winter Winnipeg and the rest of Southern Manitoba recieved last week where some regions recieved upwards of 7” of snow, spring has begun its march towards Southern Manitoba. After a cooler day today, we’ll see temperatures climb into the low single digits for the rest of the week. Some weather models show suprising heat building into the province, so the big question is: just how warm is it going to get?

12hr. QPF w/Surface Analysis

GEM-REG model image valid 12Z Thursday morning. Shaded areas are 12hr. precipitation accumulation. Red lines represent warm fronts and dark blue lines represent the cold front.

Southern Manitoba will start today on the cold side of a baroclinic zone that carves across Central Saskatchewan into North Dakota. This will limit our temperatures into the low minus single digits with daytime highs through the Red River Valley reaching only -7 or -8°C with a light northwest wind.

Winds will veer to the southwest in the evening as a low pressure system track through the Central Prairies drags a warm front across Southern Manitoba. This front will have a few scattered flurries associated with it, but accumulations should be only from a skiff to a cm. After the front passes overnight, temperatures will be on the up and up for the forseeable future.

On Thursday, we should see temperatures climb to around -4°C through the RRV under sunny skies. Thursday night temperatures will drop to between -15 and -20°C on the last cold night for a while. On Friday, temperatures will climb above zero and stay there through the night as temperatures are sustained by a southerly wind supplied by a powerful low pressure system tracking along the 60th parallel. Warm temperatures combined with a south-east wind will likely result in fairly cloudy skies as moisture from the melting snow is trapped underneath all the warm air aloft.

In the long term, models continue to pump warm air over Southern Manitoba. Warm temperatures will be the name of the game as low after low tracks across the northern Prairies. Little precipitation is in the forecast over the next 10 days, and the real question is just how warm will it get? High temperatures will be highly dependent on snow cover and, thus, difficult to accurately forecast. We’ll have to see just exactly how quickly the snow cover is eroded to get a better handle on high temperatures next week.

When a substantial snowpack is in place, daytime temperatures can have extreme difficulty rising much above 0°C regardless of the temperatures even a couple hundred feet off the ground. In Winnipeg, temperatures will often top out at 2 or 3°C under light or southerly winds. Under a westerly or south-west wind, temperatures can reach as high as 6 or 7°C, even with a snowpack.

The GFS currently has all the snow melting over the RRV by the middle of next week, and subsequently is able to pump up daytime highs as high as 16°C. This seems somewhat unrealistic, given how the snowpack was substantially reinforced at the end of last week.

A Weather Moment

Author: Brad