Friday, February 23, 2007

Winter Storm losing strength..

Well, it's looking like this winter storm will not have as much of an impact on Winnipeg and the Red River valley as initially feared, at least not today anyways. The initial wave of snow that was to arrive this morning is a lot less extensive and intense than first thought.. with drier air making it more difficult for the snow to surface. As a result, Winnipeg will end up having only marginal amounts of snow today and tonight.. maybe a couple of cm at most. Also winds aren't as strong here as initally expected so blowing and drifting will not be as bad. The bulk of the snow today and tomorrow should fall northwest of Winnipeg through the Riding Mountain area where 10 to 20 cm is expected today through Saturday. Now, eventually, more significant snow should make its way into Winnipeg as this system slowly moves across the US plains.. but now it looks like the bulk of the snow in Winnipeg won't fall until later Saturday into Saturday night when 5 to 10 cm may fall. By then however winds will be a lot lighter, so blowing and drifting shouldn't be a major problem.

Bottom line.. not as bad as first thought for Winnipeg today.. but snow will eventually make its way in over the weekend.

3 comments:

  1. Band of snow moving through Winnipeg as of midday giving a short burst of lower visibilities in snow and blowing snow. This band of snow will be through the city by 1 pm, and the rest of the afternoon should be fairly snowfree. Brisk southeast winds to 50 km/h will give drifting snow and some locally reduced visibilities in blowing snow, however I don't expect widespread poor visibilities this afternoon into tonight in the Winnipeg area.

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  2. I was surprised when Environment Canada ended the winter storm watch for Southern Manitoba. Especially since the window for receiving accumulating snow will not close until Sunday evening.

    Then today a band of moderate snow set up from Jamestown, North Dakota all the way thru southeastern Manitoba giving 15-20 cm.

    With an inverted trough still hanging around tomorrow...there will be convergence/lift with a continued feed of moisture. Seems like bands of enhanced snow could still set up and I am surprised that there is not even a watch out for Winnipeg.

    Looks like another colorado low for the middle of next week. It appears very similar to the current one except it curves more to the north. Given what is going on in Minnesota right now lets hope the computer models are wrong!

    Dan

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  3. Dan..

    I picked up another 5 cm last night.. with areas south and east of Winnipeg picking up 10 to 20 cm in that area of moderate snow that came up from the south (EC issued a snowfall warning for these areas last evening). Overall it looks like this thing will be weakening through today as the main storm system loses its punch.. but we will likely be getting a steady light snow all day into tonight along this inverted trough which may give us another 2 or 3 cm.

    The nice thing is that there's not much wind.. so blowing and drifting snow is not a problem. Still, it's getting pretty sloppy out there with these snowfalls every few days adding up. Sure hope this next low stays south of us!

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