Tag: Snow

Elsewhere in Weather News: March 30th, 2013

Matthieu Leave a comment

Europe Battles Cold

This past month it has not only been Southern Manitoba dealing with pesky cold Arctic air lingering around while the spring thaw should be starting up, most of Europe has also been under significantly below normal temperatures for the month of March. What has been bringing such cold weather can be attributed mostly to the same reason why we’ve been getting such cold; a negative NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) pattern. This is cause for Scandanavian highs staying put and bringing down some unseasonably cold air from the north-east in Europe’s case.

NAO

Graph of the NAO showing values of below zero for the whole month of March. (Source: NCEP)

Germany has had the worst of the cold in Europe with their average March temperature 4°C below average – the coldest ever since record keeping started in 1883. Other parts of Europe were generally 3°C below average for March. To add to the cold temperatures, Europe has been faced with a few significant snowstorms this month, such as last week’s snowstorm that caused hundreds of flight cancellations and even the closure of Frankfurt’s International Airport. The reason for these significant snow events this late in the season can be attributed to a low pressure system drawing in moist air from the North Mediterranean. This, when combined with the stationary Siberian high feeding cold air into the northern half of the low, makes for ideal snowy conditions.

Low pressure system, Europe

Low pressure system making it’s way across Europe and bringing with it snow. Heavy snow in areas outlined in purple, thanks to cold air being brought down by the Scandanavian high.

The Scandanavian high looks to stay put over the region for just a little less than another week, however, with the NAO trending upwards and with the sun getting stronger every day (we are now at the equivalent of a September sun), this means that warmer temperatures are on the horizon for most of Europe for the second week of April.

A Cooler End to the Weekend

Brad Leave a comment

We’ll see two more days of temperatures near or just above 0°C before a cold front sweeps through Southern Manitoba bringing minimal precipitation and cooler weather.

12hr. QPF valid Sunday morning

Precipitation amounts for Saturday night from the NAM forecast model.

Today and Tomorrow

We’ll be off to a cloudy morning with fog patches through the entire Red River Valley; the fog may be quite dense in some areas, so if you’re travelling be prepared to potentially face near-zero visibilities at times. The fog will lift through the morning and by mid-afternoon the sun should be poking out once and a while. We’ll be on our way to a high of around +1°C with light winds. We’ll see increasing cloudiness tonight as the aforementioned system pushes towards Southern Manitoba. The cloud cover will help us keep our overnight low a bit higher than it has been lately with the temperature only expected to dip down to about -5°C. It’s likely that well see the redevelopment of fog patches again tonight.

Friday

Fog patches lifting this morning with gradual clearing.
1°C / -5°C
Saturday

Fog patches lifting then a mix of sun and cloud.
3°C
Saturday Night

A few flurries with the risk of freezing rain.
-12°C

We’ll see temperatures slowly climb back up above 0°C today as the cold front approaches the Red River Valley. Any fog patches that form overnight will lift fairly quickly in the morning as we head into another nice day with a mix of sun and cloud as the temperature climbs to +2 or +3°C.

A cold front will sweep across the Red River Valley tonight, bringing some flurries with it. There’s some uncertainty to the distribution of the snow: the models tend to spread it out, but all simultaneously hint towards a narrow band of heavier precipitation setting up. It’s hard to tell what’s going to happen this early, but suffice to say that there will almost certainly be a few flurries with the potential for local accumulations of 2-4cm somewhere in the RRV. In addition to the snow, there will be the potential for some patchy freezing rain as there will likely be some precipitation before all our warmer air aloft is scoured out by the cold front. Accumulations of freezing rain should not be significant, but may be enough to slick up roadways a little.

Sunday

Saturday

Chance of flurries. Clearing.
-6°C / -15°C

There will be a few lingering flurries about on Sunday morning, but they should clear out by midday and skies will then clear out. Sitting on the back-side of the cold front, our temperature will only climb to around -6°C, although it might be a little colder than that if clouds linger further into the day.

It looks like the cold weather will only stick around for a couple days until temperatures rebound back to the 0°C mark.

Not a Great Start to the Week

Brad Leave a comment

This week hasn’t exactly started out on a pleasant note as you’re no doubt aware. Unfortunately, conditions won’t improve much after today.

image

Predicted conditions early Monday afternoon (courtesy: College of Dupage NAM model)
Monday
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Snow ending. Blowing snow.
-12°C / -21°C

Monday

Snow and heavy blowing snow is currently ongoing in parts of the Red River Valley. This snow and blowing snow will gradually taper off today, but not before snow totals of 10 to 20cm have piled up across Southern Manitoba. High temperatures today won’t be very pleasant, nor will low temperatures tonight. Overall a horrible start to the week.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday
image
Mainly cloudy
-12°C / -22°C
Wednesday
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Mix of sun and cloud
-11°C / -21°C

Conditions on Tuesday will see little improvement from Monday. Highs will once again be very cold by March standards. Luckily no more precipitation is expected on Tuesday (except maybe a flurry here or there), which is at least something to be thankful for. Wednesday will again be a seasonably cold day, with no weather of note.

Long Range

The long range is…you guessed it, ugly. At this point the GFS model (a longer range model) doesn’t show us even getting to the freezing mark in the next ten days. While this may be an overly pessimistic forecast, it is certainly possible given the extensive snowpack over the Eastern Prairies. We can only hope it is wrong, and perhaps we’ll see at least some melting, however minimal, by the weekend.

A Cold Weekend To Close Out With More Snow

Brad Leave a comment

The cold front that pushed through last night will usher in a reinforcing shot of Arctic air which will drop our temperatures back below-normal for the next few days. The weather will remain fairly benign until Sunday when a potent inverted trough low-pressure system will bring snow to Southern Manitoba.

Friday & Saturday

Friday
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Mostly cloudy with light scattered flurries. Clearing overnight.
-13°C / -21°C
Saturday
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Sunny.
-11°C / -21°C

We’ll see mainly cloudy skies today with some light flurries scattered through the Red River Valley. Temperatures will be quite cool with a brisk northerly wind limiting our daytime high to only –13°C as it ushers Arctic air into Southern Manitoba. Skies will slowly clear out overnight as we head to an overnight low near –21°C. On Saturday we’ll see sunny skies with light winds and a high near –11°C. Temperatures will drop back to around –21°C again Saturday night under clear skies.

Sunday

Sunday will be the most active weather day we’ve had in Southern Manitoba in a while. An inverted trough will push into Southern Manitoba through the morning hours with snow beginning over SW Manitoba through the morning and moving into the Red River Valley by the evening. Right now it looks like this system will develop in a somewhat complex manner; a low pressure system will push out of Montana and intensify as it moves into South Dakota and taps into moister air over the Central Plains. This moisture will surge northwards ahead of the low, which will be rapidly evolving as it interacts with a strengthening shortwave travelling along the MB/ND border. The low will rapidly develop a sharp inverted trough and feed plenty of moisture into it. This is not dissimilar to the setup earlier this month that brought 2 feet of snow to some communities in the SW Red River Valley, but at this point it does not look like this system will be nearly as potent.

Liquid-equivalent precipitation amounts from the GDPS from Sunday morning to Monday morning.

Liquid-equivalent precipitation amounts from the GDPS for Sunday morning through Monday morning.

At the moment, it appears that most communities near the International Border (from Melita all the way to Emerson) will see between 10–20cm of snow; regions near the western escarpment of the Red River Valley may see an additional 5–10cm above that figure due to localized upslope enhancement from the easterly/northeasterly winds that will set up with this inverted trough. Further north in communities along the Trans-Canada Highway (Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Winnipeg), snowfall accumulations will be quite a bit less. Currently it looks like around 5–10cm can be expected, diminishing to closer to 5cm in the Whiteshell. This is simply a first guess, though; this system may end up developing in a completely different manner should only a few small things change. I’ve erred on the side of caution, giving what I think is a “worst case” scenario. Snowfall amounts could very well be less than mentioned here; we’ll provide an update tomorrow in the comments below updating what this system looks like it’s doing, along with a snowfall forecast map.

Next Week

This system will push off into Ontario on Monday and we’ll begin a slow trek back towards seasonal temperatures through the rest of the week. With warmer air trying to push into the province, it looks like we’ll have several chances to see more snow with as a more unsettled pattern develops.