Monday, May 11, 2009

Thunderstorms possible late Tuesday

The season's first general threat of thunderstorms is possible Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday evening as a cold front approaches southern MB from the west. Temperatures near 20C along with dewpoints of 10-13C will provide the fuel for shower and thunderstorm development ahead of the cold front.. with favourable windshear giving the potential for locally strong storms giving heavy rain and large hail in some areas. Stay updated on these potential storms with comments on this blog thread, as well as GRlevel3 radar data and streaming video (if available) from local storm chaser Justin Hobson.

32 comments:

  1. Rob I have a question!
    The discussion for the Storm Prediction Center....who is that intended for???
    They use all these abstract terms that unless your a weather weenie you have no idea what they are referring to!!!!

    Same with Environment Canada's daily released weather outlook released at 7:00 am and 2:00 p.m daily!!

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  2. I know that Dave Carlsen has a website with something by the name of "Adventures of Scribe the Moose"!

    Funny.....
    but who is this person that has the website with the "Sponge Dave"????

    LOL

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  3. That's my supervisor/boss for the summer...Mr. David Patrick!

    After glancing at the 00z runs...tomorrow still looks interesting for the late afternoon/evening time frame. If only we had more heat and more moisture...the shear profile actually isn't that bad!

    Oh well...if tomorrow actually turns into something worth chasing, I'll be out in the truck streaming, if not...I'll stream from my location, like I have been doing for the past several days.

    Cheers,

    Rob - Thanks for the website link reference on your blog post...

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  4. It's nice to see that the dewpoints are up quite a bit from yesterday!
    That's a trend in the right direction if we want some thunderstorms!

    If the storms are going to fire where will they start??

    North Dakota and advect northward??
    Western Manitoba ???

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  5. Dewpoints have risen as expected, however daytime heating is being limited. It is critical that our temperatures reach into the high teens at a minimum. However, based on the current satellite that looks unlikely.

    Right now the best chance for severe storms will be in south-western Manitoba. If temperatures across south-central and south-eastern Manitoba can get to between +16 and +20 we might have a shot at something severe, but otherwise the prospects look slim.

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  6. Justin ..... Did you pick your fixed location by design? I suspect it is ideal for a quick response to all 3 of the major Manitoba tornados since 1977.

    ..July 1977 St Malo blew almost directly over your location and over extreme SW Charleswood when it touched down first in St Francis Xavier just east of Headingley and then blew over Winnipeg before cutting a swath almost 10 miles long and parallel to Highway 59 just southeast of St Malo. Touchdown occurred beginning at one Microwave tower and then finshed at another. IMSFM It never crossed the road but destroyed every scrub Poplar in a swath several 100 meters wide at times less than 75 meters from the Hwy 59. Talk about instant clearcut.
    Looking from underneath in the late afternoon early eve in Charleswood, those nasty looking clouds were moving in 3 different directions just before we were sprinkled. Speculated but didn't actually see a funnel cloud.

    The Inwood, Tuelon, Petersfield, Gull Lake, Point du Bois. tornado travelled as a funnel cloud through the Interlake from near Inwood to a point almost at the intersection of Hwy 6 and the north perimeter again not far from your location.

    It remained a silver trailing funnel cloud resembling the first one on your? UM? website for what appeared to be the entire North to south length We saw it from 100N(East West road from Wpg beach ) to road 88 (E/W Rd from Petersfield).. which seemed to take it no more than 10 minutes. On our way golfing and spotted it as soon as we headed west out of Wpg Beach. It maintained highway speed and came into view each mile as we went past an e/w road. Pulling into the Netley Creek Golf Course it pumelled us within 5 minutes of our arrival but we were inside for shelter and can't confirm it was anything more than a miidle of the afternoon Black as midnight thunderstorm which took down a few oak trees.

    The Elie one is also quite close (about 20 to 25 minutes from your location.

    Looking forward to see some of your streams

    Jim

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  7. Just as expected severe thunderstorms have erupted in south western Manitoba!

    2 thunderstorms heading into Manitoba with one having a warning for quarter size hail!

    Interesting ... Portage la prairie forecast calls for a 30 % chance of storms...while Winnipeg Forecast calls for 60% chance of storms???

    Why the difference???
    hmmmm....

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  8. Line of strong cells over western Manitoba along cold front or pre-frontal trough where skies were clear. Will be interesting to see what happens as this line moves east.

    I suspect it will become better organized as upper support increases with left exit of upper jet and LLJ retrograding slightly westwards. At the same time, these storms will be moving into a more stable environment...

    My guess is that this will become a more elevated, more stratiform complex affecting RRV and SE Manitoba overnite.

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  9. Dewpoints are generally 10 or 11C in south-central and south-eastern Manitoba. However they are as high as 12C (Gretna) and 15C (Carman). If our temperatures would have climbed to 18 or 20C like in SW MB, our CAPE values would be plenty good for severe storms. Right now it looks like the western RRV is still within the unstable air mass, but SE MB and the eastern RRV are questionable. I suspect that these storms will find sufficient moisture in SC and SE MB if they make it that far.

    0-6km shear is about 40 knots in all of southern Manitoba, which is good for hail and wind. Tornadoes chances are near zero, since the helicity values are almost non-existent.

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  10. Looks like the line of storms in Western Manitoba is filling in nicely!!

    A couple of cells to the south-east of Brandon look quite intense!

    Those cells that are to the southeast of Brandon should make it into the RRV after dark!!!

    Oh but wait that line of storms in the Minnedosa area is starting to show more of a ease south-east direction!

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  11. Jim,

    My location is not chosen by design...lol! We moved here from St. Vital in 1996. You are right, this location does offer a quick response in terms of having to drive south, west, north or east to intercept a storm. Being situated on the perimeter and near highways, 1,2,3,and 75 is great! This helped specifically for Elie in 2007. I was able to come home from work, check the radar, grab a quick bite to eat, get my cameras ready, and head towards the Elie area just in time to catch the beginning of the wall cloud and eventually the 40-min tornado!

    I'll stream as much as I can this summer especially if I'm out and about. I'm glad you're looking forward to watching the stream...I am looking forward to streaming live video for weather enthusiasts!

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  12. Severe thunderstorm warning with very heavy rain reported

    60 mm in 1 hour!!!
    WHOA!

    Looks like all of southern Manitoba will get thunder tonight with the line of storms completely filling in!

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  13. The weather network has something cool on there radar's called
    "future radar"

    Just click on that and it will do a "future-cast" on what the radar will look like 5 hours in advance!!

    NEAT!

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  14. TWN is calling for strong NW winds tomorrow afternoon into the evening, with temperatures falling from 17 to around 0-2, with showers still lingering. Any chance for flurries this late in the spring? :)

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  15. I got around 16mm of rain here in Transcona in the overnight storms...Anyone else have overnight rainfall amounts?

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  16. ROB Is there a Voluntary Rain and Snow Network like CoCoRAHS in Manitoba/Canada? They are asking for volunteers in ND

    Link on my name

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  17. Rainfall warning for area to the north of Winnipeg!!

    That cold front that is expected to enter southern Manitoba later this afternoon is one NASTY cold front!

    -2 C in Saskatoon as of 11:00 AM
    BRRRRR....

    Can you say SNOW!

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  18. 33.4mm in Steinbach so far.

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  19. Grand Forks.. sunny and 17 C... nice dry slot for them while we are entrenched in deformation zone.

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  20. 40 mm as of 3:30 pm.. quite a bit more rain than I was expecting here today. A general swath of 40-50 mm from northern and western RRV to southern Interlake. Grass sure turned green overnight with that rain and thunderstorm activity. Rain will move off by evening but cold air is well on the way.. maybe even a few flurries tonight as the non-spring of 2009 continues. Could be worse.. Cypress Hills in Saskatchewan got 35 cm of snow last night!

    By the way Jim.. EC does have a volunteer climate network. It's called COOLTAP and climate observers send in reports to the database via phone or computer. Unfortunately, obs are not available to the public in real time, but appear on EC's climate archive website after 24 hrs or so.

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  21. Rob!
    Anywhere in southern Manitoba are record cold overnight lows possible???

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  22. at 16:45 local today 13/05, I measured only 16mm of rain in my 'wal*mart' backyard rain gauge. chris in westwood wpg.

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  23. I'm up to 44.8mm here in Steinbach.

    I thought last spring was miserable...at this point I would give anything just to match 2008.

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  24. Dauphin as of 5:00 p.m is reporting snow with a temperature of 0 C !

    Wonderful......

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  25. Record lows over southern MB tomorrow are still in the -5 to -10C range. May be a record or two where skies clear.. mainly western MB.

    And don't look now.. a clipper system coming through Thursday night into Friday morning threatens snow from Swan River/Dauphin areas through the northern interlake regions with 5-10 cm possible. Winter doesn't want to quit this year!

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  26. Rainfall amounts from this system as of 5 PM included..

    Winnipeg airport.... 39 mm
    Winnipeg forks...... 57 mm

    Gimli............... 48 mm
    Carman.............. 38 mm
    Portage la Prairie.. 46 mm
    Oak Point........... 43 mm
    Pinawa.............. 34 mm
    Fisher Branch....... 16 mm

    Unofficial amounts from Manitoba agriculture mesonet..

    Portage east......... 54 mm
    Woodlands............ 48 mm
    Elm Creek............ 45 mm
    Teulon................43 mm
    Morris............... 40 mm
    Dugald............... 40 mm
    Arborg............... 37 mm
    Starbuck............. 36 mm
    Steinbach............ 36 mm
    Selkirk.............. 33 mm

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  27. Heavy ice pellet activity in Steinbach...I think I sense snow coming on...

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  28. Well it's cold enough for snow!
    0 C in Winnipeg with a wind chill of -8 C
    BRRRRR......

    If skies clear tonight and winds slacken then record lows could be reached!

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  29. Blizzard warning issued for areas around Gillam!

    I mean I know it's way up north but still that quite amazing for a blizzard this time of year considering that there average daytime high is 12 C and 0 for a overnight low!

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  30. At 8:00pm on the north side of the city McPhillips/Perimter it was snowing. Light snow but still snow

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  31. It is now snowing in Steinbach.

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  32. We had a few good bursts of snow in the last hour here in St.Andrews. Grass is covered with a light dusting of snow.

    Andrew

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