Monday, February 18, 2008

Another cold snap.. then milder by week's end

After an all too brief respite from the cold Saturday, frigid Arctic air has returned to southern MB.  And if you though today was cold, wait for tomorrow when an even colder shot of Arctic air (if that's possible) will be flooding into Southern MB along with bitter windchills. Temperatures will struggle to -27C through the day Tuesday, and north winds of 30 to 40 km/h will result in windchills of -45 much of the day.  Yuk.. I thought we were through with this stuff.

The below normal temperatures will persist into Thursday but then a warming trend is expected by the end of the week, as this cold Arctic airmass pushes east, and we get a milder Pacific airmass moving in from the west. The good news is that once this mild airmass moves in, it should last for a few days (through the weekend into early next week).. not just one afternoon!   

11 comments:

  1. Yes, it will be brutal the next couple days, but then it actually will begin to warm up. The west to east flow failed to develop this week, so cold air was able (and still is) to drop in on us. However, it appears that the west to east flow will develop late this week, and that should provide much morem pleasant temperatures toward the weekend. It will also be dry, as there are no systems headed our way at this point.

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  2. On Wednesday we could be in for the coldest night of the season. The arctic ridge of high pressure will be directly over Southern Manitoba / Northern North Dakota and Minnesota and bring with it the coldest temperatures. Judging by what happened on Friday, temperatures could reach -40, but seeing -35 to -38 could be very common. Wind chills will pick up big time as well, with the wind increasing to North-West 20km/h in the morning. Calculating that out would mean at -40 with a 20km/h wind the WC would be -56. Of course this is the "most extreme" conditions that could potentially occur. However seeing a wind chill reach -50 on Wednesday certainly isn't completely out of the question.

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  3. Very cold morning here, the low is going to end up being between -35 and -36. Tonight I would expected the temperature in Steinbach to drop to -37 to -39, with -40 possible. In Winnipeg things should be similar, but in the South-West it will be a bit warmer, perhaps only -29 to -34. Wind chills could be a problem tomorrow, with the wind picking up sometime in the morning. If they are able to materialize early we could see winds chills around -50, otherwise a value below -40 is almost a given.

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  4. Will be interesting to see how cold it gets tonight here in Winnipeg. With afternoon highs of only -27C, it won't take much to fall into the minus 30s tonight once we lose the wind. Coldest core of airmass moves south overnight and we actually get a light southwest return flow by morning, but radiational cooling should get us down to the -35C range by then. Note that the coldest readings this afternoon are actually over the western Red River valley with a temperature of only -30C in Portage as of 2pm and a windchill of -46! Agree with Scott that -35 to -38 possible in some areas of the Red River valley by morning. The relatively quick motion of the Arctic high, and lack of widespread -40 readings under it this morning make me believe that -40 will be a tougher mark to reach.

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  5. Environment Canada has Steinbach at -37 for tonight, but yesterday they underestimated the temperature by quite a bit. They forecast -30, but it ended up being -35. I believe that this may be underestimated again, with daytime highs here only -28 it leads me to believe -40 is still possible. I don't like that south-west flow impeding on the cooling in the morning, but that is only supposed to come into effect around 4 to 6 a.m., so hopefully the temperature will drop off substantially before then.

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  6. actually wanting this cold weather...that's different.

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  7. Scott what's the motivation have you got money on -40

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  8. Well..down to -34.7 at YWG with a light NW flow persisting at midnite. It is tied as the cold spot with Wasagaming and Carberry for the whole province. Every single CWB site adjacent to the city is sitting at -32 or -33 C (Brunkild, Rosser, Grosse Isle etc). The drainage winds are working their magic yet again. It may well become the warm spot as the flow eventually does shift to the southwest. What a weird recording station. (O.o)

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  9. I suppose you could say I am on the optimistic side for cold weather. In my opinion if the temperature is going to be -35, why not -40. Just from looking at maps and such it appeared to me that we could certainly approach -40, as I said actually reaching it is a possibility. The South-Eastern area of the province would be the most likely to do so, as of 7 a.m. Marchand is at -39, although unlikely it still has a shot at -40.

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  10. Coldest readings this morning:

    EC's network: -37.6C at Sprague
    CWB's network: -37.8C at Vassar
    MB ag network: -39C at Marchand

    Even Grand Forks had a record low of -36C this morning.

    OK, enough of the cold already.. let the warming begin!

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  11. Excellent lunar eclipse tonight, I wasn't able to take a picture myself. However found one that looked just like the moon outside my house and posted it on my website (www.steinbachweather.ca). The picture I posted was from Salmon Arm, BC at 8 p.m.

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