Tag: warm

Potentially Record-Breaking Warmth on the Way!

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Warmer weather is on the way for Winnipeg this week as another surge of mild pacific air crosses the Prairies. Temperatures will push well past 0°C on Thursday, with several record highs at risk of being broken across Southern Manitoba.

00Z Fri. SFC Temperature from GEMGLB

Surface Temperature plot valid for 00Z, Friday January 6th, 2012

Warm air will surge across the Prairies with a low pressure system that will track across the Central/Northern Prairies Wednesday/Thursday. Those of us in the Southern Prairies will get to enjoy a nice early-January day where temperatures will reach between 5°C and 10°C by Thursday afternoon with relatively light winds.

Temperatures should be restricted by the snow cover, and I’d like to see a solidly southwest wind to get daytime highs as high as currently forecast (+7°C for Winnipeg).

Thursday, January 5, 2012 18Z Wind Field from GEM-GLB

Surface Wind & MSLP for Thursday, January 05 valid at 18Z from the January 3rd, 2012 12Z run of the GEM-GLB.

Currently, winds are forecast to shift from southerly to westerly in the afternoon, however if the troughing ahead of the low is not as deep as currently forecast, southerly winds could prevail in the RRV and keep our temperature significantly lower. That being said, I’d be willing to pin the daytime high for Winnipeg to be about 6°C, reached late in the afternoon. This temperature is well above the -16°C it reached last year on January 5th, the -13.5°C on January 5th, 2010, and the -24°C it reached on January 5th 2009.

The average daytime high temperature for January in Winnipeg is -12.7°C, and the warmest temperature on record for any day in January in Winnipeg is 7.8°C, set on January 23, 1942. The current record high for January 5th is 4.3°C, set in 1984. We will definitely be well above our average daytime high on Thursday and most likely break the old daily record. Is it enough to break the all-time temperature record for January in Winnipeg? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Another Warm, Sunny Day with a Chance of Late-Day Showers & Thunderstorms

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Another Beautiful Day
A shot of Downtown Winnipeg, August 18, 2011

A low pressure system moving into the Interlake has brought yet another day of sunny skies and daytime highs near 30°C to Winnipeg and the Red River Valley today. However, by late this afternoon, a trough moving through the RRV has the potential to produce a few showers or thunderstorms.

A southerly flow ahead of an incoming trough is pushing warm air up the Red River Valley which will push daytime highs to the 30°C – 33°C range today across the Red River Valley. Along with the warm temperatures, the southery flow will help increase our dew points from their current 11°C levels to 16°C – 18°C by late afternoon. This will make it feel a little muggy, but all in all, a very nice day on tap for everyone in the Red River Valley (which may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your occupation).

1500Z Surface Analysis
1500Z (10AM Local Time) Basic Surface Analysis

A trough associated with this low pressure system currently sits along the Manitoba Saskatchewan border (represented by the dashed black line in the image above) will move eastwards through the afternoon. As the trough moves into the area this evening (around 6 or 7 PM), a few scattered showers and thunderstorms should develop along a line running north-south along the trough. Again, as usual, Winnipeg itself has a 50/50 chance of showers splitting around the system as sources of lift begin to move north and south as they move eastwards.

Model Image
3hr. Precipitation Amounts from the 12Z GEM-REG Aug 18 Model Run valid 03Z Aug 19

After this little evening blip, we move into a slightly cooler pattern as a cold trough swings across the province, giving us daytime highs in the low-to-mid 20’s for the next couple days. Saturday and Sunday offer a slight chance of showers as a couple weak impulses slide across the region from the north-west.

Early next week, a significant upper ridge builds over the Southern Prairies which will bring more heat and dry weather to the region. Beginning Monday, temperatures across the RRV will climb into the low 30’s and stay there for much of the week as sunshine and a southerly flow dominate for much of the week.

Summer is Here!

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As Manitobans in the Southwest corner of the province continue their battle against the swollen Assiniboine river, mother nature has granted us tremendous weather.  Clear skies and warm temperatures have spread throughout much of the province, giving us a reprieve from the cool and cloudy conditions that we seemed to be entrenched in for…well a long time.  But will it last?

An “omega block” set up across the Prairies late last week, with the jet stream rounding the base of an upper low off the coast of California and then heading up to the Northern Prairies, arching over an upper high that had built into the central Prairies and then heading south and exiting the continent around the bottom of an upper low off the east coast.  This allowed a large-scale southerly flow to develop and warmer air to push northwards into Canada.  As a side note, this is called an “omega block” because the jet stream curves in the shape of the Greek character omega, and it’s a fairly stable pattern that doesn’t move very quickly, hence it’s a blocking pattern.

Over the past few days, a shortwave has pushed into Alberta and the blocking pattern has begun to shift.  Instead of completely collapsing, it seems to have rotated such that the block is now aligned northwest-southeast instead of north-south.  This will allow cooler air to push into the western Prairies (as is seen today with cooler temps and rain through southwest Saskatchewan) while building the warm air over the eastern Prairies.

Stormier weather is brewing to our south, though.  A significant shortwave is expected to eject northeast out of a stationary long-wave trough on the upper-west coast on Thursday night, moving into the Dakotas by Saturday.  This feature has a lot of uncertainty attached to it at the moment, but the models have been pushing the precipitation envelope further north with each successive run, which puts Winnipeg increasingly into the risk of some rain ruining our lovely weather.


12 Hour QPF valid 06Z Sun 22 May from the GFS Model

I’ll provide some further details about this system in a couple days when it’s beginning to resolve a bit better.  It looks likely that areas south of Morris in the Red River Valley will likely see some accumulating rain this weekend, but first we get to enjoy several more days of hot, sunny weather.  Get out there and enjoy it!

Summer is Pushing Into Southern Manitoba

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The beautiful conditions we’ve had over the past while will take a slight break today, with notably summer-like weather pushing over the Red River Valley. With the Red River and Assiniboine River rapidly rising, how much rain will we see?

A low pressure system currently in Eastern Montana continues to push warm air northwards through the Dakotas towards Southern Manitoba. This warm air brought thunderstorms to Eastern Montana and the Dakotas overnight, and as they have pushed northwards, they have lifted up over the warm front and transitioned to elevated convection that, while weakened, is producing an area of rain that is pushing into our area.

As this precipitation continues to move northwards, away from the warm front, it will weaken as it looses it’s precipitation generating support. The rain that currently resides over the international border will slowly push north, and could give a few light showers to Winnipeg late this morning before it peters out. The main weather that will impact us is currently developing over southeastern Saskatchewan and Southwest Manitoba.


This area of rain visible on the southern edge of the RADAR image will continue to blossom as the low strengthens and overall lift in the area intensifies. This will then begin to track east-northeast later today and spread an area of rain across Southern Manitoba, including the RRV. The models are having some difficulties determining how much precipitation this will produce, which is to be expected, however their tracks for the precipitation are beginning to agree.
GEMLAM

GEM-GLB

GFS

NAM

These models are all from their respectice 06Z runs, except the GEM-GLB which is the 00Z run, showing the precipitation accumulation from 00Z – 06Z tonight. The NAM is a big lighter on the precipitation, but other than that, they all agree (more or less) on location and intensity of the rain. So what will happen?

The precipitation accumulation will vary significantly depending on the amount of embedded convection that manages to develop. Current indications are that after a few showers late this morning, rain will begin to push across the Red River Valley late this afternoon or early this evening. The rain should end over the Southern RRV overnight as the low pulls further north and shifts the precipitation north as well. In Winnipeg, the rain should end sometime early tomororw morning; likely before 8 AM. Total rainfall amounts are difficult to pin down, as it will be directly proportional to the amount of convection that develops, but I would put my money on a general area of 5-10 mm (1/5 – 2/5”). If any significant convection should develop, some areas could potentially see up to 15mm of rain (~ 1/2”).

Once this precipitation clears out, the rest of the weekend will remain a little unsettled. The warm front maintains its position across ND, which will result in the chance of rain over the RRV as convection rides up over the warm front into Southern MB. Next week looks quite nice, however, with mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the low-to-mid teens. How all this precipitation will affect the river levels remains to be seen, however any accumulating precipitation has people concerned with the extremely high river levels that already are impacting the RRV. For more flood information, Rob over at Rob’s Blog has put together a nice collection of flood links.