Beautiful summer weather will be in place over the Red River Valley through the second half of this week with high temperatures in the mid-to-upper 20’s and just an ever so slight chance of an isolated pop-up thundershower.
The next few days will bring beautiful summer weather with daytime highs around the 25–27°C mark. These highs will be a few degrees above the seasonal values of around 23°C or so. Mild evenings are also ahead with overnight lows dipping just to around 14 or 15°C. Winds will also be quite light as a very weak pressure pattern establishes itself over Southern Manitoba.
The RDPS shows temperatures in the mid–20’s over Southern Manitoba on Thursday afternoon.
Both today & tomorrow will see some pop-up cloud through the day thanks to daytime heating. Not much is expected from it, although there may be a few isolated showers this evening into the overnight period as a weak trough pushes through the region. Tomorrow will also bring a very slight chance of an isolated thundershower; by and large it will be a beautiful day with some afternoon cloud.
Friday looks wonderful with temperatures in the upper 20’s and mainly sunny skies and light winds.
A Look Ahead to the Weekend
The weekend is looking more unsettled than the second half of this week thanks to a large low pressure system slowly trundling through the Northern Prairies. Throughout Saturday and Sunday it looks like we may see a chance for some showers as a cold front stalls out over western Manitoba and multiple disturbances ripple northeastwards ahead of it. Temperatures will remain in the low-to-mid 20’s, depending on exactly how much cloud cover we see.
Not a terrible weekend, and hardly a washout; just be aware that there may be some wet weather on and off, depending on where exactly you find yourself!
The weather will take a turn back towards being unsettled this weekend as a weak trough moving through the region brings another round of shower or thunderstorm activity. For the most part, though, it appears that most of the next few days will be quite pleasant.
Today will be a pleasant early summer day with daytime highs around the 23°C mark throughout the Red River Valley with mixed skies – likely leaning towards the cloudier side. Winds will be relatively light at just 20km/h or so out of the southeast. The RRV will see increasing cloudiness overnight with a low near 14°C and winds out of the southeast at 20–30km/h.
Saturday
Saturday is a day fraught with uncertainty. Similar to earlier this week, a disturbance tracking across the Northern Plains of the U.S. will spread rain and thunderstorm activity across North Dakota, while significant uncertainty exists to how far north into Manitoba the precipitation will extend.
Overall, it will be a cloudier day with highs around the 20°C mark. There are several possible outcomes to consider for the day:
We see a large area of rain move across Southern Manitoba on Saturday morning that produces a wide swath of 1–2” of rainfall. It moves out on Saturday afternoon and we see a slight chance of some evening convection.
The bulk of the rainfall stays in North Dakota with a disorganized area of showers moving across Southern Manitoba through the day on Saturday.
The bulk of the precipitation moves through North Dakota while precipitation focuses along a surface trough over Western Manitoba that gradually works its way into the Red River Valley later in the day.
It’s really difficult to tell which outcome will be the correct one at this point; models struggle terribly with systems that are driven by the energy release of thunderstorms; it’s not uncommon to have successive model runs wildly alter precipitation location by over 100km, such as what happened with the system that brushed Southern Manitoba earlier this week.[1]
Probability of ≥ 0.5″ (13mm) of rain between Friday night and Saturday night.
With all the uncertainty regarding what may happen on Saturday, I’d err towards the current HPC 24hr. rainfall probability outlook. This image shows the probability of receiving more than 0.5 inches (13mm) of rain over the 24-hour period. It shows roughly a 20–30% chance for Friday evening through Saturday evening. This would suggest that the heaviest precipitation stays through the Dakotas while further north we see some shower activity with a slight chance of some thunder mixed in. There’s a decent chance of some thunderstorms along the trough line in Western Manitoba in the afternoon, but much of that activity will likely taper off heading towards the Red River Valley.
At this point, though, I wouldn’t rule out all of the precipitation remaining to the west and south of Winnipeg, leaving us with just a cloudy day. We’ll be tracking this system and providing updates in the comments below as things become a little more clear.
Sunday
Sunday will be a fairly nice day with temperatures climbing back into the mid–20’s under mixed skies. There will be a slight chance for some afternoon pop-up shower activity throughout the Red River Valley, but nothing significant is expected. Overall, it looks to be quite a pleasant end to the weekend.
UPDATE: Convective Outlook for Sunday
A risk of thunderstorms exists across much of Manitoba today, including the Red River Valley. Scattered thunderstorms are expected to develop this afternoon as daytime heating, coupled with ample surface moisture, destabilizes the atmosphere. In general, thunderstorms are expected to be non-severe with no organized severe thunderstorm threat. Isolated, short-lived severe storms may be possible, though, particularly along the trough line extending from the Central Interlake southwards through the Red River Valley to the US border.
Convective Outlook for June 7, 2015
The overall thunderstorm setup doesn’t look too impressive today. MLCAPE values around 1000-1250 J/kg will have only around 15 kt of 0-6 km bulk shear thanks to a unidirectional northwesterly wind profile with low speed shear through the column. Temperatures are fairly mild through the depth of the column, resulting in skinny CAPE profiles. Moisture is sufficient, with dewpoint values in the 15-17°C range through the Red River Valley. It’s possible that some localized backing of the surface winds may occur near the trough, providing a little more inflow structure to the thunderstorms.
In general, a relatively unimpressive day; with limited energy available and weak focusing, once convection starts, everything will be “fighting for scraps” so to say and it’s quite likely that thunderstorm activity will be very pulse-y: a storm will spike up in intensity for 10-20 minutes then weaken as another one pops up.
With the higher moisture, and slightly more favourable directional profiles along the trough, there’s a small chance for isolated, marginally severe thunderstorms. The main feature of today’s storms will be fairly heavy downpours under them, but the unidirectional shear looks like it will successfully push storms along at a decent clip, so no one location should see a storm for too long, unless it roots on the trough line. For any storm that might become severe, the reason would likely be marginally severe hail at around 20mm (a nickel) diameter.
The weather will calm down this evening and we’ll be heading into a gorgeous summer week!
The NAM forecast model went from forecasting ≥ 50mm of rain for Winnipeg to 0.5mm on the next run of the model. ↩
The first part of this week will see unsettled weather as a strong low pressure system passes to our south. This system will likely result in moderate rainfall and a risk of thunderstorms over southern Manitoba on Tuesday.
Monday
Today looks to be mainly cloudy ahead of an approaching low pressure system. There may be a few passing showers throughout the day, but no major precipitation is expected. High temperatures are expected to reach the low twenties with gusty south winds.
Tuesday
Tuesday looks quite unsettled as we sit north of a fairly strong low pressure system over the Dakotas. A warm front will likely be located over northern North Dakota, allowing for warm and potentially stormy weather just to our south. In southern Manitoba, we will remain stuck in a cool easterly flow north of the warm front. As a result of our position relative to the warm front we likely see moderate rainfall during the day with a chance of embedded thunderstorms.
The simulated RADAR reflectivity from the NAM forecast for Tuesday afternoon shows a large area of rainfall moving over Southern Manitoba.
Should the warm front move further north than expected, our risk of thunderstorms will be higher, but at this time that does not look probable. Total rainfall amounts in southern Manitoba could be in the 15-35 mm range, although it is difficult to predict this sort of system ahead of time. Higher rainfall amounts are certainly possible on a localized basis due to isolated thunderstorm activity.
Wednesday
Wednesday looks cool and cloudy as Tuesday’s system departs. We my see a few showers during the day, but in general not much precipitation is expected. The wind will be from the north at around 30 km/h.
Long Range
The long range forecast suggests we’ll see generally normal to above-normal weather through the middle of June. Numerous weak to moderate weather systems are expected to traverse the region over the next while, meaning our weather will continue to feature unsettled patches, before we return to more favourable conditions.
The warm and sunny weather we will be experiencing today will give way to showers on Thursday and cooler conditions on Friday after a cold front’s passage on Thursday night.
Wednesday
Wednesday
23°C / 12°C
Mainly sunny.
Today will be the nicest day in the second half of this week. Temperatures in the mid-twenties coupled with mainly sunny conditions and fairly light winds during the day will make it feel like a pleasant summer day. Cloud cover is expected to move in overnight – before Thursday morning – ahead of an approaching low pressure system which should keep the overnight low temperatures fairly warm in the low teens.
Thursday
Thursday
19°C / 6°C
Showers possible during the day.
On Thursday a weak low pressure system passing to our south is expected to bring rain to a good part of Southern Manitoba during the morning and afternoon. Accumulations aren’t expected to come close to what we saw during the May Long Weekend storm, but areas near the border could see a decent rainfall. Winnipeg can expect to see totals between 2-5mm, while some areas near the border could see higher amounts – closer to 10mm. Some cloud cover will likely hang around through part the overnight period until the cold front passage.
Friday
Friday
12°C / 0°C
Cooler.
After the passage of the cold front overnight Thursday, cooler air will be ushered in on Friday. With highs only reaching the mid-teens, Friday is expected to be the coolest day of the week. Winds will also be quite gusty behind the cold front on Friday as strong cold air advection occurs behind the front. In turn, Friday night looks to be quite chilly with temperatures in the single digits. It’s too far out to know if temperatures will reach the freezing mark, but gardeners should be aware that temperatures might get close to 0°C.
Long Range
At this point models show that the weekend will be a nice one, high temperatures will be on an upswing as they gradually increase from Friday to Saturday and Saturday to Sunday. No precipitation is expected either, so it should be a good weekend to get out and enjoy the outdoors!
