Thursday, April 17, 2008

Pack your winter gear if you're heading west this weekend..

For anyone planning on travel into western SK or southern AB this weekend, you had better bring along some winter gear and maybe a shovel. Ingredients are coming together for a powerful and prolonged late season winter storm to affect southern AB and western SK over the weekend, possibly lingering into Tuesday over portions of western SK. Heavy snow and strong winds may bring near blizzard conditions to these areas Sunday through Monday, especially along the SK/AB border where up to 50 cm of snow may fall in some areas by the time this storm winds up Tuesday. Luckily for southern MB the storm will weaken by the time it comes through here by mid week, although we will get colder with a possibility of snowshowers.. but at this point, nothing like what they will be experiencing out west this weekend! (Models hinting at a possibility of accumulating snow for us late next week, but we'll think positive for now!)

26 comments:

  1. I wonder if Winnipeg will be in the warm sector all throughout this storm and get a risk of thunderstorms Sunday night??? hmmmm......

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  2. EC says upwards of 50 cm in western Saskatchewan?! Now that's insane. I really do hope that rain does move in here with the system, as we need precipitation badly, to prevent a potential situation come summer.

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  3. Yes, we can use the moisture here.. as can western SK! But I wouldn't panic about our lack of moisture just yet.. we still have May and June to get through which can be pretty wet months around here.

    As for this storm.. models take bulk of the moisture over southern SK and into central MB.. bypassing most of srn MB. They keep us dry in the warm sector until the cold front pushes through on Monday with a band of showers.

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  4. WOW!
    It is 19 C as of 12:30 and we should have no problem getting into the 20's today!!!
    What is the record for today???
    30C!!!!
    Well we have a ways to go yet!

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  5. At my house here the temperature peaked at around 21.2 degrees in St. Vital. Really nice weather we're getting, as opposed to Calgary who is reporting "Heavy Snow" at this time, or a bit earlier.

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  6. There appears to be a chance of thunderstorms at least as far north as extreme southern MB. In the Lancaster, MN area, models show Monday's LI readings at -2. If that holds up, there could be some garden variety thunderstorms. I won't see them, as I am on business in California right now. It is 31 here now, but it will be in the high teens over the weekend, which will send southern Californians running for their coats. I will be wearing shorts for the duration of my stay here. I almost turned my AC on in the car on the way to the Winnipeg airport Tuesday.

    Yes, southern MB and NW MN are in need of rain. Before I left, we (Lancaster fire dept.) got called out to several grass fires, and there were fires in southern MB as well. Hopefully, Monday's rain will materialize, and if the 12mm of rain the models show actually falls, it should help. My only concern is that during dry periods, the models tend to overdo rain chances and amounts.

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  7. EC has noted a chance of thunderstorms in the SW of the province tomorrow, maybe we can get some too?

    Man is it ever warm! I'm getting a reading of 16.2 degrees as of 10:10 am! That's the warmest morning temperature I've seen yet this year here.

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  8. ya!
    Compare that to Calgary right now with a temp. of -12 and windchill of -22
    OUCH!!!!

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  9. It is a pretty wound up storm, and there is a big difference in temperature ahead vs. behind it. Also, models show LI values of <0 going up past Winnipeg at 18Z on Monday as this graphic shows:

    http://weather.unisys.com/
    nam/54h/nam_rh_54h.html

    You will have to cut and paste that one to view it (you'll need to do it in two stages). Right now, it looks like thunderstorms are possible at least as far north as Winnipeg, but we'll have to see how the storm tracks.

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  10. The limiting factor for thunderstorms is surface moisture.. very dry through Srn Mb and northern plains. We need to get a surge of higher dewpoints coming up in that southerly flow to get the thunderstorm potential up.

    Gorgeous day out there.. but even warmer in southern Ontario. Almost 30C in Niagara today! Meanwhile 30 cm of snow in southern Alberta. Gotta love April in Canada!

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  11. I have a feeling the models are overdoing QPF. There is not a well defined low level jet feeding gulf moisture into the system. Especially by later in the period when the system appears to get totally cut off from any moisture transport.

    For Winnipeg to get tstorms we would need strong warm and moist advection from the south to destabilize the atmosphere... if the models are correct, this is not likely to happen.

    Also of concern are the outlandish 850 mb temps the models maintain under the upper low. They seem to be verifying in Alberta today. My guess is that they will modify significantly by the time they reach Manitoba.

    However... no sooner does the upper low finally retreat and weaken, the models bring another vortex straight down thru Manitoba into N Minnesota. The airmass seems ridiculously cold for nearly May... surely the warmer topsoil and high sun angle will have a mitigating effect.

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  12. It is equally nice in South-Eastern Manitoba. It is about 18 degrees out there, but it feels more like the low twenties.

    All we need now are leaves on the trees, and green grass and it will really feel like summer!

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  13. We may not be able to get adequate moisture far enough north to get storms, and perhaps the LI values shown by the models are overdone because these models are overdoing the northward extent of the moist air. I will check to see what the LI values end up being on Monday. Even if the LI values allow thunderstorms, lack of moisture will kill the chance anyway.

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  14. Looks like Eastern Alberta is going to get hammered with heavy snow with Blizzard warnings and 40 - 60 cm of snow!!
    And oh my is it ever cold for this time of year!!!
    Rob looks like a system will be approaching us on Thursday with our chance of some snowflakes!!!

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  15. Yeah.. not liking that long range outlook for us. Models definitely hinting at a possible snowfall for Southern MB by late week. Even if we miss out on the snow, looks like a prolonged period of below normal temperatures through the end of April. Make the best of this weekend!

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  16. Sunday Apr 20.. A little cooler today than yesterday thanks to brisk southeast winds tapping a cooler stratus-filled airmass to our southeast. Plenty of cloud over southeast MB slowly advecting northwest towards Winnipeg this afternoon.. may reach us by evening. Temperatures in this cloud deck were struggling in the 10-12c mark.. while we climbed to a breezy 16C in bright sunshine. But that will be the last of the mild weather for awhile.. cold front moves through Monday and then it looks like below normal temperatures through the end of April. Hopefully we dodge any of the white stuff..

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  17. Well heres a sign of at least some good news. It now seems rain is a higher potential in winnipeg Thursday. I'm still on the edge though, I fell its too early to tell for sure cause if that rain snow line shifts a bit, we could be on the exact opposite of the spectrum as far as precipitation type is concerned.

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  18. Quite the rain shower that passed by!
    The rain came down in buckets and I think I heard a rumble of thunder!!

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  19. Lightning detector network confirms strikes west of Headingley and near Dugald. New area of strikes now appearing southwest of Steinbach heading towards Scott's place!

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  20. I didn't see any lightning or hear any thunder. It looked like some more intense areas of precipitation passed by at around 1:00.

    My rain gauge reads 4.3mm, and the Manitoba AG gauge recorded 6.7mm. I would suspect that no thunderstorms came over according to those numbers, although some stronger "rain cells" definately passed by.

    P.S. The temperature went from about 10 degrees at 11:30 to 4 degrees by 12:00.

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  21. Another site in Steinbach.. Woodlawn school.. recorded 8.4 mm today. Most places in southern MB saw between 5 and 10 mm in that rain band today.

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  22. I talked to a friend of mine in Hallock and he said they had a crack of thunder there, and they probably had that in Lancaster as well, although I won't know for sure until I talk to someone there. I'm working on my forecast, and it looks interesting. Maybe some light showers tomorrow, but they would not amount to much with all the dry air moving in. However, any showers would likely cause gusty winds with the dry air at lower levels. One of the models shows a 96% chance of rain for Thrusday...you don't see that 3 days out very often.

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  23. I just checked the WRF...not looking good.

    The Brandon - Portage la Praire -Carman area could potentially see 20 to 35cm of snow according to current projections. Winnipeg will be right on the freezing line, so maybe 5 to 10cm there. Farther South-East it looks to be an all rain event with maybe 25 to 35mm of rain. There will be quite the temperature gradient as well. In Minnesota it could be 20 degrees, while in Winnipeg it could be 0!

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  24. One model shows Winnipeg going from rain to snow on Thursday, while the other shows all rain. Both show significant amounts of precipitation. Models also show a slight chance of thunderstorms in the Hallock and Lancaster areas of MN. Meanwhile, in southern California, the cool weekend we had will be replaced by highs by highs in the lower 30s by Friday. Models show some of that warm air getting up there by the latter half of next week. Right now, long range models suggest highs to 24 in the Winnipeg area by next Thursday and as high as 26 down around Hallock. It will be interesting to see if this develops, but this time of year, one extreme can easily be followed by the other a week later.

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  25. I won't go into detail other than say that Thursday could turn mighty interesting!

    I posted all my thoughts and maps on my Blog (not to turn attention from yours Rob, I just don't want to type out all that information again!)

    http://steinbachweather.blogspot.com/

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