The weather this week will continue from where the weekend left off as warm and mainly sunny conditions prevail. Temperatures will remain in the upper twenties, before dropping off a bit mid-week.
Monday
Today will be mainly sunny, although some upper-level cloud may drift through southern Manitoba as a result of a large weather system to our south. Other than that, there isn’t much weather to discuss for today. Temperatures will climb into the upper twenties and winds will remain light.
Tuesday
Tuesday looks to remain quite warm, with temperatures once again reaching the upper twenties. During the afternoon it is expected that the atmosphere will destabilize a bit due to slightly higher humidity and daytime heating. This may result in the development of some showers and thunderstorms. Any storms that do develop will be weak with only very small hail and/or brief gusty winds being possible.
Wednesday
A cold front will pass through southern Manitoba on Wednesday morning, ushering in slightly cooler temperatures. Highs are expected to be in the low to mid twenties under mainly sunny skies. There may be some light showers associated with the passage of the cold front, but other than that no significant weather is expected.
Long Range
The long range forecast suggests we’ll generally stick with above-normal temperatures, although not necessarily as warm as it has been recently. Highs will more likely reside in the low to mid twenties, although the occasional jump into the upper twenties is certainly possible.
More wet weather is on the way to Winnipeg & the Red River Valley as a slow-moving upper-level disturbance bears down on Southern Manitoba. The bulk of the rainfall associated with this next system will be quite a bit more concentrated than last week’s Colorado Low with much of the precipitation being produced by a single, relatively narrow band of moderate rainfall sliding across the region.
Winnipeg will see a high of around 12°C today with cloudy skies through the day. Shower activity will push northwards through the Red River Valley over the morning hours bringing a decent chance of some rain to Winnipeg by mid-to-late afternoon. Winds will be breezy out of the southeast at around 30km/h with a bit of gustiness on top.
Clouds will stick around tonight as the temperature drops to around 7°C with a continued slight chance of showers through much of the overnight period. The next disturbance will move into Southern Manitoba late overnight, spreading rain from SW to NE starting near the Pilot Mound/SW RRV region and lifting towards Winnipeg.
The NAM is forecasting around 10-15mm of rain for much of the Red River Valley on Thursday, with some areas seeing as much as 20-25mm.
Thursday will start off as a fairly rainy morning, then see rain taper off from west to east through the afternoon. Skies will remain cloudy through the day with winds out of the east. Expect a high near 13°C. The low on Thursday night will be around 7°C under mainly cloudy skies.
When all is said and done, it’s possible we’ll see somewhere from 10–20mm of fresh rain, however this entire system may end up shifting slightly further west which would leave the Red River Valley fairly dry until remnant showers pass through on Thursday night. We’ll be sure to keep tabs on things as they develop through the day and update with the most likely outcome later tonight.
Friday will bring a break from the gloomy weather as things clear out through the morning, leaving us with sunshine and a high near 19°C and light winds.
Long Range
This weekend will bring another disturbance through the region that has the potential to produce a significant amount of rainfall – 25–50mm – however there’s still a lot of uncertainty associated with the system and many divergent model solutions at the moment. It will likely be a generally unsettled week at best, and potentially a downright rainy one at worst. Some forecasts are showing some fairly favourable convective parameters on Saturday that would hint towards the first significant thunderstorm day of the year, but a decent capping inversion looks to keep things at bay as long as the current forecasts hold out.
While Southern Manitoba has seen glancing blows from true Colorado Lows a few times over the past couple years, Winnipeg is in the middle of a multi-year drought with the last direct hit from a Colorado Low in memory occurring in November 2012.[1] Responsible for some of the biggest synoptic storms[2], Colorado Lows are a major weather system that often produce pretty much everything: thunderstorms, heavy rain, light showers, overcast & drizzly conditions, freezing rain, heavy snow and/or blizzard conditions.
This satellite image from early this morning shows the developing Colorado Low over…Colorado. Who would have thunk?
Today will see the arrival of a Colorado Low that will dominate the weather over Manitoba for the coming few days. Southern Manitoba will escape most of the nasty weather associated with this system with just rain expected – albeit a fair amount – while Northern Manitoba gets slammed with heavy snow, freezing rain and strong winds.
Wednesday
Wednesday
24°C / 15°C
Increasing cloudiness then showers with the risk of a thunderstorm
Today will be a relatively pleasant day despite the imminent arrival of the Colorado Low. While today will start off with a little bit of sunshine, high cirrus will move in through the morning with thicker cloud arriving this afternoon. Winds will be out of the south to southeast at around 30–40km/h with some gustiness on top of that. Shower activity – with the risk of thunderstorms – will work its way northwards out of the Dakotas through the day into the Red River Valley. Temperatures will be quite mild with highs around the 23–24°C mark.
Heading into the evening, main band of showers associated with this system will spread across Southern Manitoba bringing rain with a slight chance of an embedded thundershower to the region. Rainfall amounts through the Red River Valley will likely be highly variable thanks to the convective nature of the precipitation; in general the “safe” guess at this point is somewhere in the 15–25mm range…or so. I don’t believe amounts will be much higher than that, but depending on a whole bunch of factors, amounts could end up in the 5–10mm range instead. Unfortunately, with such highly convective systems, these things are almost impossible to forecast until much closer to the event, so we’ll be providing updates in the comments below as well as on Twitter and Facebook. The showers will persist through the night as the temperature dips down to around 14 or 15°C.
Thursday
Thursday
17°C / -2°C
Showers
Tomorrow will be a fairly wet day with more shower activity, potentially quite heavy at times, lasting much of the day before finally beginning to taper off in the evening. Our high temperature will only be around 17°C with some light southerly winds flipping to the northwest in the afternoon to around 40km/h. Rainfall amounts, again, could be quite variable thanks to the convective nature of things and exactly how the system matures.
The RPDS weather model is bullish on convection and producing over 2″ of storm-total rainfall for the Red River Valley. This is likely too much.
There are really two possible outcomes:
1. General rainfall amounts near 10mm with convective amounts once again near 20–30mm in the Red River Valley. This would assume a general “rainy” area with embedded convective storms.
2. Very little rain as energy reconsolidates around a low developing in North Dakota and precipitation pushes off to our south and east.
I don’t think Plan #2 is particularly likely, but it should be noted. Again, we’ll provide updates heading forward below in the comments as this entire system becomes a more developed.
The gusty northwesterly winds will taper off in the evening as the precipitation moves out. Expect the temperature to drop to a very chilly –2°C.
Friday
Friday
8°C / -3°C
Mainly sunny and cool
Friday will be a pretty benign day marked by temperatures well below normal for this time of year as our high struggles to climb to 8°C with an Arctic ridge building into the region. Winds will be breezy out of the northwest at around 30km/h making for a chilly day all around.
Clear skies will continue on Friday night as the temperature dips to around –3°C.
I checked through our archives and chatted with a few other people, and that seems to be the general “last hit” agreement. Feel free to leave a comment if you can recall one more recently. ↩
Synoptic storms are large low pressure systems that impact across hundreds to thousands of kilometres, unlike convective storms which impact small areas. ↩
This week will start out very nice, with temperatures in the twenties. However, a strong low pressure system will move in toward the middle of the week, bringing more unsettled conditions.
Monday
Today will be a great day in southern Manitoba. Temperatures will be near the 20C mark with sunny skies and light winds. There isn’t much else to say, enjoy the weather!
Tuesday
Tuesday will be another very nice day as temperatures climb into the low twenties, once again under mainly sunny skies. Winds will be from the south-east at about 20 km/h.
Wednesday
Wednesday will remain warm, but more unsettled conditions will begin to take hold in southern Manitoba. An approaching low pressure system is expected to bring rain showers to southern Manitoba late in the day and into Wednesday night. This system may bring us more significant precipitation on Thursday, but it is too early to speculate on potential rainfall amounts.
Long Range
It looks like we’ll see cooler weather late this week into the weekend as a much cooler air mass gets pulled down from the north. This push of cool air will result from the departure of this week’s low pressure system. Long range models suggest we’ll return to above-seasonal conditions at some point next week.
