Monday, November 24, 2008

Dry and pleasant rest of November

The weather has been very quiet here in Southern MB the last couple of weeks, and it appears the quiet weather pattern will stay with us the rest of the month. According to long range models, no major precipitation bearing systems are forecast to affect us through the end of November, which will be a disappointment for those looking for snow, but good news for those not ready to put up with winter's worse just yet. Snowfall has been meager over southern MB this month since our first major snowfall of the season back on Nov 6-7th. Here in Winnipeg, we've had just 2-3 cm of minor snowfalls since the 8 cm in the Nov 6-7th storm. In fact, much of the Red River valley south and east of Winnipeg still has little or no snow on the ground.

Temperatures will also be near to above normal for the rest of the month, with daily highs in the minus 2 to minus 4 mark the rest of the week into the weekend (with above freezing temperatures possible over snowfree areas). So it appears that after a somewhat early start, Old Man winter has taken some time off. Is he resting up for a nasty return visit in December? Or is he just getting old and tired? Time will tell. At this point however, it appears that a major snowfall is not in the cards for southern MB for the foreseeable future.

11 comments:

  1. Glad to see they dropped the falling temperature trend for today. Just didn't see the temperature falling to -10C this afternoon with sunshine, limited cold advection and little snowpack around. Similarly I think the -6 for tomorrow is too cold.. after dropping to a low of -10 to -13C this evening, temperatures will be rising overnight as a southerly flow develops and clouds move in. We'll be near -6 by morning, and with more sun tomorrow, we'll likely be up to the -3/-4 range again by afternoon. I think model temperature guidance is being overly influenced by a snowpack that is having less of an effect on temperatures in the southern Prairies due to its age and limited extent.

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  2. As Rob explained well .. the 'scribe' guidance is being thrown off by the lack of fresh/deep snow cover. I noticed a similar problem last spring after the snow melted.

    EC has now adjusted the high for Tues to -2 C. I actually think that may not be high enough lol. Impressive warmth over even Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan with many reports of 3-5 C. GFS progged 4 C 850 MB temps over Regina this afternoon and surface temps surged up to 5 from a chilly morning low of -12. GFS depicts 850 temps almost 2 C for early Tues aft over Winnipeg. Given a southerly flow over bare ground transitioning to a nice westerly wind .. I think we could get to 1/2 C like Sunday.

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  3. Sitting at -4 C now but I see EC dropped their forecast high to -3 C ...wow, talk about wonky.

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  4. EC's forecasts have been the cold outliers of late. Most guidance going for highs in the -2 to 0C range today for Winnipeg. As you mentioned, above freezing highs possible today, especially downtown, and areas south and east of Winnipeg where there's little or no snow cover.

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  5. Why would Environment Canada not adjust there forecast using some of the variables that you guys are discussing .
    Rather they insist on using the computer models for all there forecasting techniques!

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  6. I have a question!!!
    Maybe someone will be able to answer!
    Why on Environment Canada website does it randomly update current conditions???
    Like this morning at 8:28 AM it did a update on current conditions when normally it is only every hour!!

    I see on channel 48 (shaw) they too also update conditions way more often. Is that some automated weather station or is that someone who runs out and takes temperature and wind speed?????

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  7. Weather conditions on the Weatheroffice website are updated every hour on the hour. Sometimes a weather station from a major airport site will give an "extra" observation between hours to update weather conditions for aviation purposes. (these extra obervations are called "specials") In those cases, Weatheroffice will put the updated infomation up.

    As for Shaw 48, they get updated weather information directly from the Winnipeg airport site every 20 minutes or so, so they usually have the most up to date temperature and wind information.

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  8. Looks like Winnipeg will finally be getting a fresh blanket of snow tonight!
    2 cm is what sounds like is on tap!
    You would think that the temperature would be getting a lot colder considering that the winds will be very strong out of the north.
    40 - 60 km/h!

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  9. Very interesting.. Brandon has switched over to rain on the back edge of the precip. Temperatures there stayed above freezing all evening. Parts of Winnipeg have also remained above zero.. will be interesting to see what happens.

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  10. Picked up 3.6 cm of snow overnight in a nice litte burst. Temperatures were actually above zero overnight as the band went through, but now those northwest winds are drawing in colder air, so temperatures will be staying below freezing the rest of the day. Might be a little slick on some roads this morning due to the freezing temperatures and wind.

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  11. Clearing has worked in behind the system earlier than expected. Going to be a tough call on temperatures today. Models hint at 850 MB temp recovery (-4 C) by this afternoon before more cold advection moves in overnite and tomorrow. With lots of sun will be interesting to see how temps respond.

    By yesterday afternoon, the UM area and south Winnipeg had very little snow cover. In central Winnipeg last nite's snow has melted/compressed down to around 1 cm.

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