Here's Brett Anderson's take on the European models for the month of August:
The mean pattern for the week of Aug 10-16 : Below-normal rainfall over the Prairies. Temperatures close to normal in the western Prairies and slightly below-normal in the eastern Prairies.
Aug 17-23: Sparse rainfall throughout most of the Prairies. Temperatures close to normal.
Aug 24-30: Heating up over the Prairies. Near-normal rainfall over the western Prairies, but drier compared to normal over the eastern Prairies.
My interpretation: Below normal temps for the next 3 weeks. We will smash the record with 9 consecutive months of below normal temps. At least the rainfall should be below normal. I was actually going to predict a hard freeze for the 3rd week in August with some lake effect flurries south of the lakes. I think I will take Brett's interpretation of a warm-up in the 3rd week of August to heart and will avoid my pessimistic prediction.
A POSITIVE If we are defining NORMAL as a range which covers more than 50% of recorded daily hi's in a 30 yr period. Then all 3 August forecasts appear NORMAL .
Now if we can spot those above normal hi's on weekends ...
I live in Saskatoon and this has been such a terrible year. I'm seriously considering moving to BC because if this sort of thing happens again, I can't take it. I lost so many plants to frost and then rot.
So looking at analog years, it appears that this pattern will turn around in November. Phooey. That won't bring back my vegetable garden.
The last time we had an El Nino winter (2005-06 - nice warm foggy winter), it was followed by a delightful spring and summer. Will this happen next year?
Andy, I am also in Saskatoon. I think one of the huge impediments to further growth in the Canadian Prairies is the climate... As much as locals here rave about it, I really think it scares alot of people from moving here... Even from economically disadvantaged Central Canada... I know I can hardly wait to get back to Ontario where normal summer highs are in the upper 20's and the daily, weekly and monthly extremes are just not there like they are here... I have never seen it 4C in London in July... Or have 4 overnight below freezing in June... Insanity.
I hate to tell you, but if you move away from Saskatoon, the place you move to will end up with crummy weather while Saskatoon experiences beautiful weather.
It is one of Murphy's Laws, or something like that.
Daniel Has there been any 7 day forcast or 14 day trend since Dec that didn't set us up for a fall with "warming trends" or "Hot" next week(end) hallucinations?
I think the models have ingested too many mind altering substances and suffer from complete memory loss beyond 5 days.
It seems like just yesterday ROB said "Finally! - Extended stretch of sunny warm weather ahead It's been a rarity this summer, but it looks like southern MB will have an extended period of sunny warm weather ahead this week.. possibly lasting right through the upcoming weekend. A large upper ridge of high pressure is forecast to build over the Prairies this week which will help to maintain sunny and stable conditions from the Rockies into northwest Ontario.. a nice change from the persistent unstable airmass that has brought almost daily shower and thunderstorm activity across the Prairies this summer. Temperatures in southern MB will be pleasantly warm this week.. in the 25-27c range climbing into the upper 20s to low 30s over the weekend. The GFS is even indicating a high of 33C for Winnipeg by Sunday. Perhaps YWG airport will finally hit that elusive 30C mark yet this summer! Whatever the case.. it finally looks like some nice beach weather ahead this week and weekend over southern MB.
Finally...a change in the weather is in the works! GFS and NAM models finally show a major pattern change. A high is building over us as I type this message...and the winds will be switching around from the dreaded NW direction to the welcomed SW direction. With this being said dewpoints will slowly climb, and Winnipeggers will finally get a taste of summer. It's been since June since we've seen a favorable weather pattern and I'm excited about it. The long range actually shows a High over James Bay with climbing dewpoints all the way up into Churchill. Even they might experience some warm/humid weather.
What does this all mean? Well...in short it looks like an extended period of seasonal/above seasonal temperatures are in store for us.
So ya, I think we've flipped into Summer mode from this point onward. We just have to get through the convective rains over the next 2 days then we're golden!
Bird watchers beware! Manitoba's provincial bird will definitely be showing it's face over the next several days.
In the mean time, I'll be heading to the Northern Plains to chase this weekend. Set-up looks quite favorable for tornadic supercells on Friday, Saturday and maybe Sunday.
Upper flow transitioning to SW as noted.. at the same time, warm air advection on LLJ and across midlevel warm front off to our SW generating convective complex in the Dakotas.
Models depict strong LLJ and sharp midlevel trough slowly building NE thru the night. Isentropic ascent, instability, and frontogenesis all support heavy convective precip for areas south of the border overnite. The features lift into our region by midday tomorrow but lose definition at the same time. Best defined LLJ will focus down over southern Minnesota.
In fact, LLJ will persistently intersect a stalled surface warm front from the S Dakota all the way into SW Ontario for much of the short range. This is a perfect set up for round after round of MCSs to move across the midwest and into S Ontario... establishing a high precip corridor. I think the main surface based action will be right along the warm front many hundreds of kms to our south.
Locally I do not expect much more than clouds and light showers. Midlevel front will be over us ahead of main upper low. However advection across front and attendant frontogenesis looks weak. Best moisture and instability remain south aswell. This pattern actually looks quite similar to that of August 2007 - in which the midwest received historic rains while areas from central Minnesota and S Manitoba experienced precip deficits.
According to the models, we could see multiple days above 30C this coming week. It reminds me a bit of last August, when Steinbach almost reached 35C around the 15th . It will be the hottest week since June and possibly the warmest since last August!
Hopefully we get some good thunderstorm activity out of this. We have been lacking the heat to create the really severe storms, so here is our chance.
2m AG just means "2 metres above ground level". That is the official height for recording surface temperature.
There is one spot on that map that says 102F, which is 39C. That is the hottest predicted temperature in that area. I doubt it will get that hot, but you never know.
Justin Did you get to Minn? I Ret'd from Mpls tonite and trust me, Heat humidity and storms are the talk there as well at least until last night. 3 hours of Tornado sirens and 2 or 3 tds from one Supercell
This week looks like a scorcher (at least by Manitoba summer 2009 standards). Models are trending towards a low from the southwest to pass by on Friday. Looks as though it will take the same route every other low has in that it will move to the northeast, strengthen, and put us into that cool northwest flow...yet again. Temperatures I would expect to be around 20C by Sunday. Enjoy it for what it is worth. This could be it for summer '09.
I think that the low that will move through on Friday won't hang around like the past lows Chris. The flow is almost zonal and a blocking pattern isn't present...based on the 12z GFS anyways.
Severe weather chances for Southman look to be on Wednesday and Friday. This will end our high temp chances, but we'll be normal to slightly below normal after that. But we should recover by the middle of the following week!
I'm looking forward to the increasing humidity as the weekend approaches.
And Jim...I didn't make it to Minneapolis. I was on that monster tornadic supercell that developed west of Sioux Falls, but unfortunately it hit the capped air mass to the East and died out quite quickly. I'm not to happy about this past weekend's chase...but I'll get over it!
Our hottest day looks to be tomorrow and possibly Wednesday before the storms arrive. We have a minor lull in high heat temps Thursday...but Friday might be quite humid if we get warm sectored like we're forecast too...hello CAP!
From now on I'm only chasing in Southern Manitoba! I've cap busted too many times this summer!
1) My chase criteria is even more restrictive... only within the city lol. Surprisingly, I actually saw some pretty good structure this year.
2) I think NAM is going berserk with the amount of drying/mixing in the downslope flow. GFS looks more reasonable with a more SSW flow and 850 hPa temps of 22 C. There is also still a lot of moisture on the fields which will enhance evapotranspiration and moderate temps somewhat. I am comfortable going with 31/33 C Tuesday/Wednesday.
3) Widespread severe convection appears quite unlikely on Wednesday nite. Moisture is very shallow (very dry at 850 hPa) and any upper support will be in central interlake regions. Therefore I suspect cap will not break except for some localized high based cells. Best chance would for a lake breeze storm to brush north of the city. Also could be some garden variety showers in the more moist, post frontal environment.
4) Late this week looks more interesting in terms of tstorms with good moisture advection ahead of upper low and baroclinic ribbon draped across intl border.
I tend to agree with the thunderstorm assessment for Wednesday. With temperatures expected to be in the mid thirties, along with a high temp/td spread, I expect a very strong cap. The cold front moving in is relatively strong, if you consider the temp will drop from 35 on Wed to 26 on Thurs. However, I don't expect to see much upper cooling ahead of the front, which means the cap will probably stay in place. Since CAPE values are only expected to be around 1500J/kg, the storms won't be able to "punch" through the cap like on extremely unstable days. Overall I wouldn't expect anything severe south of the lakes.
My forecast for Steinbach is 33/36 (Tues/Wed)...and 32/35 for Winnipeg. Since my numbers are based on "downtown Steinbach", I suppose I would be using the Forks as my Winnipeg reference.
Friday looks quite interesting, assuming we get sufficient daytime heating. With CAPE values expected to be around 3000J/kg, along with a strong LLJ and approaching trough, we could see something significant. On the other hand, if we don't get sufficient heating (likely high twenties or thirty), the cap won't break.
Temps around 28 with a dewpoint of 19. It's a shallow 19 but hey it's nice to see dewpoints around 20.
Tomorrow looks Capped! And I mean capped! The nose at 850mb is so large that it'll take some major cooling to erode the cap enough to fire off some storms. It's funny though...the NAM model does break out precipitation after 1pm in Southern Manitoba...but I think the precip is overdone.
Friday raises my brows a bit though. EHI's are cranked up around the border with a Low moving towards North Central ND by Friday afternoon. Triple point looks to set up from Melita to Minot. We have a stout cap to deal with but I think the dynamical forcing should aid in firing off some deep convection. All modes apply on Friday for severe weather. If a supercell is able to form and roll along the warm front situated around the international border...then tornado chances will quickly increase.
It's Tuesday...so we'll have to wait and see. In the mean time enjoy the heat...tomorrow (Wed) looks blistering hot! Like mid 30's for Southern Manitoba!
Humidity is elevated today. 29/19 at my place. This means it is highly unlikely that those extreme temperatures advertised by the models will occur today. 38C isn't possible in this setting with dewpoints near 20C. If surface moisture spiked down, into the low teens or single digits, then higher temperatures would be possible.
Cold front moving thru and as I suspected abundant evapotranspiration capping temperatuers. Winds were too lite to generate good mixing and allowed boundary layer moisture to pool.
Line of elevated cumulus lagging behind front. Models hint at low level warm and moist advection above shallow northerly flow at surface thru midnite. I think this will be enough to generate a post frontal line of showers tonite. Better organized LLJ will crank up aheand of disturbance coming up from Montana Thursday and Friday nite.
Right now it appears best forcing will stay across the border.. however the models are depicting lots of elevated convection forming NW of the mid level cap (700 hPa temps of 10-12 C). Consequently the potential exists for organized convection (not severe) Thurs and Fri. This will keep us cool as surface low and warm front take shape over the Dakotas.
We will have to watch the exact track and position of the low/warm front... but right now it looks like SE Manitoba may briefly tap the warm sector on Saturday. At this point the surface based action appears to stay SE of Winnipeg.
Post frontal convection firing up with watches out...
persistent southerly flow above surface has deepened moisture sufficiently for storms to develop. Right now the heaviest cells are occurring in areas to the south which heated out a bit better ahead of front and therefore have higher instability. The north end of the line is only producing virga as the precip encounters drier air at midlevels. The south end of the city may once again get clipped - lets see what happens...
Tough to track these storms with all the ground clutter.
The extremely buoyant air mass in the RRV and SE MB may be able to sustain the storms. However, the cap also remains strong and didn't want these storms to start in the first place.
I'm on the north side of Winnipeg at the perimeter/Hwy 8. So far we have had short duration showers of a couple of minutes each. Another one just started now.
Training of cells continues just north of the city from a near Poplar Point to Rosser to Stony Mountain line. Normally this would spell a flash flood situation. It remains to be seen how much of that prcip is being eaten away by the dry mid levels...
What should we expect as far as precip goes regarding this low passing by this weekend? 40+mm? And what does it look like as far as temps go after this weekend?
EC Woodlands Radar has a crescent shaped line of TStms from north of Dauphin to Brandon since 6am which dissolves and disappears in the last few frames.
EC Foxwarren shows nothing for the entire 3 hours
TWN Radar had until the last 40 mins forecast this to pass thru wpg mid pm and now has dissolved it as well.
That crescent shaped line of storms was Anomalous Propagation...in other words...it is nothing. It occurs when the radar beam ducts beneath a sharp temperature inversion above the surface.
Anyways...this evening/overnight looks really primed for Nocturnals over the Red River Valley and points Eastward...in fact the Jets are better aligned tonight then they were last night...
But Saturday....wow! The 850mb jet really gets going...Saturday looks the best for elevated storms over us...heavy rain looks likely...better build that arc. Tornado chances look low over the next few two days due to the massive cap over us. If the cap proves to be weaker...well then!
Anyways...about tonight...one prog sounding for Winnipeg this evening shows a high likelihood of elevated severe thunderstorms with the risk of large hail. Shear is great...so rotating updrafts look possible; hence the large hail risk!
Anomalous returns from the Woodlands radar are especially common along the Manitoba escarpment as the beam refracts thru the denser (colder) layer near the surface and encounters the upslope terrain.
LLJ between 925 and 850 hPa kept elevated convection going thru the nite. It will persist and intensify fueling more showers and tstorms thru the weekend. Convective lines will form north of the stalled surface front to our SE... exactly where is tough to say. Saturday aft/eve looks very interesting as warm sector brushes us and LLJ ramps up. I would expect discrete cells to form along warm front and congeal into a large convective complex. The potential is definitely there for heavy rain this weekend...
Since there is no defined trigger (besides a warm frontish thing), the cap may or may not break. Daytime heating will be good, probably getting us to around 30C and moisture will also be good (tds around 20C). Moisture depth is also good today (850mb tds around 12C). Shear is also good, with 0-6km bulk shear at 40 to 50kts. All these factors add up to be an extremely unstable and volatile atmosphere, which is simply being held back by capping.
Long story short, if storms become surface based (by breaking the cap), then we will experience the most severe outbreak of the year. On the other hand, if the cap doesn't break, elevated storms similar to yesterday will occur. Elevated storms may or may not become severe, it is hard to tell.
My advice; watch the satellite, radar, and NWS mesoanalysis to track capping and tcu development.
I tought there was something familiar. Those imaginary AP Tds have been mostly missing for the last 2 summers ...// so has summer..
Like . the Plymouth/ Mpls SCell spawned tornados in the dark became straight line wind damage when the sun came up. contra to visible cloud rotation that was unmistakeable at dusk from 8 miles away in Rogers mn
Last nights lighting was a little to INTENSE for me!!!
I mean.... I love watching lighting storms but I was a little to much for me!!!
Question!
Is one safe watching a storm from his apartment balcony??? You know you have all that protection ABOVE you but could the lighting still somehow hit you by coming horizontal???????
Theoretically you and your balcony furniture can get hit.
What was your golf ball doing on a balcony I would take an unplayable lie and retreat to the (19th Hole)clubhouse. Those Graphite clubs are great conductors.
Personally I've seen it travel down trees crossover then down a Fireplace chimney and then straight across a living room to the opposite wall in the same house. (Charleswood)
Nocturnals likely tonight. Severe Storms are currently near the MB/SK Border. MLCAPES are quite high too...so as the storms roll East...they should intensify and hold together for quite some time!
Time for some more lightning photography! I'll set my alarm for Thunder...then it's snap snap snap!
Convection building back and training will of intense cells will occur along a Pelican Lake to Elm Creek to Winnipeg line... extreme precip totals will be possible along this corridor by tomorrow morning...
Well.. I keep getting woken up lol. Interesting how the cells absolutely refuse to build into central Winnipeg. Southeastern parts of the city to La Salle and back thru Starbuck and Elm Creek could get 75 to 100 mm tonite alone... same old story.
...and the rain is back to torrential with a bit larger hail this time I think...not quite but close to dime sized...or maybe still pea...hard to tell in the dark haha
So far on the North side of the city we only have had about 2-3 minutes of rain when the first system came through earlier. So far staying just south of us. Maybe making up for last night as we got dumped on big time last night. Quite the lighting show to the south with some big boomers.
I know, I'm talking about current RADAR estimates...not QPF estimates.
Basing on reflectivity rates aaaannnd where storms were earlier training pver each other, a good 4" is likely to have fallen in the past few hours in some parts of the SW.
"At 4:45 AM weather radar continues to show an west to east line of intense thunderstorms moving eastward at 50 km/h through Southern Manitoba. Brief heavy downpours, hail as large as toonies and intense lightning have been associated with these storms."
Thats gotta be what...1" to 1 1/4" sized hail in places?
Quite the night in Windsor Park. Just before 4:00am a loud crash of thunder had me up and out of bed without even touchng the floor. This was followed by an hour long power outage. I think I shat the bed with that thunder, wow. Not much in the way of hail at my place, a couple pellets. I heard someone from La Salle called into CJOB saying they received "pop-can" size hail. Can anyone confirm this or was this a bit delusional. This is what summer is all about in my opinion. Hot during the day, storms at night.
Scott did that hail cause a lot of damage to vehicles and roofs or was it just small enough to avoid that? I wonder how widespread that hail was there will be a lot of crop damage with 10 minutes of hail?
Thanks for confirming anon. I have never heard the "pop-can size hail" reference before so I assumed it was a bit far-fetched. Baseball size hail certainly isn't anything to sneeze at. Anyone reporting hail damage?
Back in 97 when we lived in St. Adolphe, we had even bigger than baseball sized hail. Smashed all my downspouts, pot-marked my wood fence, broke my neighbour's window and just wrecked any car on the street.
Just looking around the neighbourhood this morning there does not appear to be much damage but will have to check out the roof later.
It sounds like we got off easy in south River Heights. Plenty of lightning, but very little precipitation; MLBYWS collected 6 mm, and no hail or wind. I checked outside around 3:30 AM and the humidity was palpable. The lightning seemed to be cloud to cloud only.
Gorilla Lightning and Bird's Hill Lightning were very different in their interpretation of last night's approaching storm event. Bird's Hill showed nothing immediately south of the city, Gorilla did.
Shaw Channel 9 had a banner with the storm warning as soon as it was issued, no evidence of it on the Weather Network or Channel 48, although I didn't check those much. Hats off to Shaw for that.
So, some interesting weather events, and likely to continue today it seems.
We have had quite the hail size reports coming into the Weather Office this morning. Hail ranging from Nickel to Toonie to Walnut to Golfball to Baseball.
Baseball hail is the largest...and apparently we are getting pictures of the hail later this morning.
Lightning last night was insane. Storms likely fired on the Lake Breeze boundary that stalled South of the city. The question I ask was if these were Surface Based storms or if they were Slightly elevated? Most major league hail events are caused by surface based severe thunderstorms.
On radar, the storm that produced the monster hail in La Salle right moved away from the main line of storms that was moving ENE towards YWG. It cut SE over The Sanford/La Salle/Domain areas...and sure enough our largest hail reports are coming in from these areas.
To summarize, it was a great Nocturnal Event. Models actually handled the episode well.
The nocturnal threat for tonight looks quite low when compared to last night and the night before.
Severe chances look to be in ND/MN today... We may also see some flare up surface-based thunderstorms develop in SC/SE MB today if we can clear up and heat up. There are also some boundaries around Southman, so surface based storms may actually focus themselves in these areas. Actually there is some clearing coming in to SW MB as I type...so hmm!!!
Thunderstorm chances are better for tomorrow morning through the afternoon as the LLJ refocuses itself over Southern Manitoba yet again as a low skirts by.
All-in-all it has been a great few days...talk about a compressed summer severe weather season for Southern Manitoba!
According to NWS, hail only causes notable damage when it gets to 25mm in diameter. The hail around Steinbach was only about 20mm in diameter. 20mm hail is severe, according to EC, but doesn't cause the same kind of damage that 25mm+ hail would. Nevertheless, I still think it is senseable to keep the 20mm criteria in Canada, since we are less accustomed to hail than our southern neighbours. Also, if dime sized hail is driven in strong winds it can easily cause greater damage.
There are reports of window damage in Steinbach from hail, but not around me. The storm probably dumped larger hail at the damage location.
Can anyone tell me why Environment Canada when issuing thunderstorm warnings keeps re- using the same text over and over for hours!
I mean they might change one word or add a word or two.
I mean I understand there are so many storms that it would take to long to write out a warning for each severe storm.... but they at least give more details rather than large hail strong winds and heavy rain.
I like the NWS system of very specific warning boxes and descriptions of current or past damage!
Last nights storms were elevated. Abundant altocumulus was noted in the evening and the storms formed after dark as the LLJ ramped up. Warm air advection above shallow ENE flow at surface.. classic elevated set up. I am not sure what role was played by any outflow boundaries.. but the cut off from forcing from LLJ was very sharp on the models last nite. That is why I said to expect convection especially just SE of the city. Storms rooted above the boundary layer can still produce damaging hail.
Models do show a more bifurcated LLJ focused into central Minnesota and SE Saskatchewan in the overnite period. But by morning, I would not rule out elevated convection building north into southern RRV again. Some uncertainty yet on cloud trends and exact position of warm front and LLJ for tomorrow.. stay tuned.
PS... btw I would love to see some precipitation estimates from Woodlands radar. Strong cells repeatedly trained over the La Salle area and out along the highway 1 corridor to the Ontario border where some locations doubtlessly picked in excess of 75 mm. Not even a mention of heavy rain (only briefly the hail) in this morning's focn... disappointing. Flash flood situations are extremely dangerous and likely cause more deaths than tornadoes. There needs to be better coordination, in my modest opinion, between the province and EC regarding such threats.
Rob seemed to have great resources for actual MB Ag Mesonet was one source which he used in the spring.see below
Jon I was referring to my experience and Robs answers on BLOG April 29th which begins NWS Storm Total Precipitation Radar > 125mm became 20 -40 max 45 at Mohall near Bottineau.
According to the Starbuck weather station (a few kms away from Sanford), that area received about 25mm of rain. Starbuck is on the northern fringe of the heaviest precip, so La Salle could easily have double that.
RADAR estimates show a clear swath of heavy rain south of Winnipeg. The swath seems to range from 25 to 100mm. It is hard to determine a number for a specific location though. Click my name for the estimate.
So for Saturday is their any chance that rain might just miss us or we dead set in the sights of mother nature. I have so much to do tomorrow and unfortunately it does not go good with rain.
E.C.'s weather warnings are stictly a CYA (cover your ass) E.C. doesn't have the time, tools, or talent to provide focused warnings. If you wanna know if you're gonna be hit, you either look aoutside or look at the weather network's radar images. E.C.'s forecats warnings and watches suck big time! They could close down all the forecast offices and we wouldn't know the difference. In fact we might be better off. The Weathernetwork is Canada's leading choice for forecasts, period!
Well at least they can spell, more than I can say about you. Obviously you don't know what you are talking about, and even more obvious, is you couldn't spell it out even if you did know.
Over 110 Posts ago Chris WP provided his 3 predictions. Halfway thru August the 9 consecutive month record for Brrrr..Below Avg Temps looks a sure thing.
And for those Ark builders I think we should speed up the finish date. The 12 consecutive month moving avg Precipitation record has to be close.
Question. Are there any weather related prognostications not mentioned yet that should be considered in the design. eg Skip the Solar Panels Sunshine will be minimal. Install windpower turbines instead
Anon, I'm not so sure we'll smash the 9 consecutive month record anymore. I'm thinking we'll see about 4 or 5days of close to normal temps, then another warmup busting that 30Celsius mark. It will be close.
Even if we saw another two 30C days, it is unlikely that we would end up above average.
The first week of August was below average and next week will also be below average. This means we already have 1/2 of the month below normal. This week was above average (not entirely), so assuming we get an addition 30C day you could figure that we had one full week above average. Really this leaves one wildcard week left.
The last week of the month may decide how the month will turn out. If that week is near normal, the month will probably be below normal. If that week is above-normal, then the month will probably be close to normal. When I talk about 'normal' I usually talk about the average high. Rob uses the mean to determine whether the month is above or below normal. The mean is a more scientifically correct indicator, but I prefer the average high, because most people don't care about the low (because they are sleeping anyway). The mean figures the entire day, but since most people judge a day by its high, I think that makes more sense for most folks.
We only need 7 more days of glorious summer heat. Last I checked the mean to the 13th was .3 to .4 below average with a cool week coming. If we continue as forecast the next 7 days, we need a last week of August mean of 2.0+ over the monthly mean and 3.0+ over the last august week's mean, That would make up for the rest of the month.
I'm for it if it means I can postpone the Ark building
Imressive looking cloud bank southeast. Thats far more typical of summer late afternoon early evening formations... over Steinbach or Braintree..or somewhere east of Winnipeg
Clear skies in dry slot in N Dakota has allowed for some destabilization. Another round of convection at interface of clear skies and deeper moisture. Expect this round of showers to move in shortly.. perhaps affecting more the central and eastern parts of the city.
Here's Brett Anderson's take on the European models for the month of August:
ReplyDeleteThe mean pattern for the week of Aug 10-16 : Below-normal rainfall over the Prairies. Temperatures close to normal in the western Prairies and slightly below-normal in the eastern Prairies.
Aug 17-23: Sparse rainfall throughout most of the Prairies. Temperatures close to normal.
Aug 24-30: Heating up over the Prairies. Near-normal rainfall over the western Prairies, but drier compared to normal over the eastern Prairies.
My interpretation: Below normal temps for the next 3 weeks. We will smash the record with 9 consecutive months of below normal temps.
At least the rainfall should be below normal.
I was actually going to predict a hard freeze for the 3rd week in August with some lake effect flurries south of the lakes. I think I will take Brett's interpretation of a warm-up in the 3rd week of August to heart and will avoid my pessimistic prediction.
Rob!
ReplyDeleteAre you enjoying your holidays???
Maybe by the time you come back it will be 35 C with a humidex of 40 C
HA!
A POSITIVE If we are defining NORMAL as a range which covers more than 50% of recorded daily hi's in a 30 yr period. Then all 3 August forecasts appear NORMAL .
ReplyDeleteNow if we can spot those above normal hi's on weekends ...
Lets hear it for NORMAL.. average is just to confining
ReplyDeleteI've spent too many August Long Weekends freezing and drowning in a tent. This is definitely Seasonal if not Normal
ReplyDeleteI live in Saskatoon and this has been such a terrible year. I'm seriously considering moving to BC because if this sort of thing happens again, I can't take it. I lost so many plants to frost and then rot.
ReplyDeleteSo looking at analog years, it appears that this pattern will turn around in November. Phooey. That won't bring back my vegetable garden.
The last time we had an El Nino winter (2005-06 - nice warm foggy winter), it was followed by a delightful spring and summer. Will this happen next year?
Andy, I am also in Saskatoon. I think one of the huge impediments to further growth in the Canadian Prairies is the climate... As much as locals here rave about it, I really think it scares alot of people from moving here... Even from economically disadvantaged Central Canada... I know I can hardly wait to get back to Ontario where normal summer highs are in the upper 20's and the daily, weekly and monthly extremes are just not there like they are here... I have never seen it 4C in London in July... Or have 4 overnight below freezing in June... Insanity.
ReplyDeleteAndy and treeboy...
ReplyDeleteI hate to tell you, but if you move away from Saskatoon, the place you move to will end up with crummy weather while Saskatoon experiences beautiful weather.
It is one of Murphy's Laws, or something like that.
Looks like after a cool few days toward the weekend there could be some warm temperatures with a few chances of STORMS!!!
ReplyDeleteHot weather?????
I don't seen any anytime soon!!!
The models are starting to show hints of a major warm up next week!!!
ReplyDeleteMaybe we will get some 30's along with some storms in the week to follow!
Daniel Has there been any 7 day forcast or 14 day trend since Dec that didn't set us up for a fall with "warming trends" or "Hot" next week(end) hallucinations?
ReplyDeleteI think the models have ingested too many mind altering substances and suffer from complete memory loss beyond 5 days.
It seems like just yesterday ROB said "Finally! - Extended stretch of sunny warm weather ahead
ReplyDeleteIt's been a rarity this summer, but it looks like southern MB will have an extended period of sunny warm weather ahead this week.. possibly lasting right through the upcoming weekend. A large upper ridge of high pressure is forecast to build over the Prairies this week which will help to maintain sunny and stable conditions from the Rockies into northwest Ontario.. a nice change from the persistent unstable airmass that has brought almost daily shower and thunderstorm activity across the Prairies this summer. Temperatures in southern MB will be pleasantly warm this week.. in the 25-27c range climbing into the upper 20s to low 30s over the weekend. The GFS is even indicating a high of 33C for Winnipeg by Sunday. Perhaps YWG airport will finally hit that elusive 30C mark yet this summer! Whatever the case.. it finally looks like some nice beach weather ahead this week and weekend over southern MB.
Posted by rob at 11:26 AM AUG 06/2008
Finally...a change in the weather is in the works! GFS and NAM models finally show a major pattern change. A high is building over us as I type this message...and the winds will be switching around from the dreaded NW direction to the welcomed SW direction. With this being said dewpoints will slowly climb, and Winnipeggers will finally get a taste of summer. It's been since June since we've seen a favorable weather pattern and I'm excited about it. The long range actually shows a High over James Bay with climbing dewpoints all the way up into Churchill. Even they might experience some warm/humid weather.
ReplyDeleteWhat does this all mean? Well...in short it looks like an extended period of seasonal/above seasonal temperatures are in store for us.
So ya, I think we've flipped into Summer mode from this point onward. We just have to get through the convective rains over the next 2 days then we're golden!
Bird watchers beware! Manitoba's provincial bird will definitely be showing it's face over the next several days.
In the mean time, I'll be heading to the Northern Plains to chase this weekend. Set-up looks quite favorable for tornadic supercells on Friday, Saturday and maybe Sunday.
Can't wait!
Justin,
ReplyDeleteYou are a brave man by making a forecast like this, but I welcome it.
Have fun down south!
Upper flow transitioning to SW as noted.. at the same time, warm air advection on LLJ and across midlevel warm front off to our SW generating convective complex in the Dakotas.
ReplyDeleteModels depict strong LLJ and sharp midlevel trough slowly building NE thru the night. Isentropic ascent, instability, and frontogenesis all support heavy convective precip for areas south of the border overnite. The features lift into our region by midday tomorrow but lose definition at the same time. Best defined LLJ will focus down over southern Minnesota.
In fact, LLJ will persistently intersect a stalled surface warm front from the S Dakota all the way into SW Ontario for much of the short range. This is a perfect set up for round after round of MCSs to move across the midwest and into S Ontario... establishing a high precip corridor. I think the main surface based action will be right along the warm front many hundreds of kms to our south.
Locally I do not expect much more than clouds and light showers. Midlevel front will be over us ahead of main upper low. However advection across front and attendant frontogenesis looks weak. Best moisture and instability remain south aswell. This pattern actually looks quite similar to that of August 2007 - in which the midwest received historic rains while areas from central Minnesota and S Manitoba experienced precip deficits.
31 C for a forecast high on Tuesday!!!
ReplyDeleteCould it be????
Finally some summer HEAT!!!!
FINALLY!!!
According to the models, we could see multiple days above 30C this coming week. It reminds me a bit of last August, when Steinbach almost reached 35C around the 15th
ReplyDelete. It will be the hottest week since June and possibly the warmest since last August!
Hopefully we get some good thunderstorm activity out of this. We have been lacking the heat to create the really severe storms, so here is our chance.
Models are showing a high of 30C on Monday, and 32 to 35C for Tuesday. Summer is coming in with vengeance!
ReplyDeleteFinally!
ReplyDeleteNext week looks hot!!
Also I'm sure there will be a potential of storms with the heat!!!
Looks like we could get some thunderstorms in Southern Manitoba today!
ReplyDeleteSome storm are already forming in the interlake and are drifting south!
Heavy rain will be a threat with such slow moving storms!
Very hot week ahead! Models show us getting to 34/35C on Tuesday, and possibly 38C (100F) on Wednesday (click my name for graphic)!
ReplyDeleteNot sure if we will get to 38C, but nevertheless it will be very warm.
WHOA!!!
ReplyDeleteThat is a real STUNNER!!!
What is 2m AG temperatures??????
Could you please fill me in on what that is!!!!
Either way all those purple temperatures sure look HOT HOT HOT!!
2m AG just means "2 metres above ground level". That is the official height for recording surface temperature.
ReplyDeleteThere is one spot on that map that says 102F, which is 39C. That is the hottest predicted temperature in that area. I doubt it will get that hot, but you never know.
Justin Did you get to Minn? I Ret'd from Mpls tonite and trust me, Heat humidity and storms are the talk there as well at least until last night. 3 hours of Tornado sirens and 2 or 3 tds from one Supercell
ReplyDeletejim
Scott Those temps are higher than anything by +10 to +20C this summer. looks like we can stay here for real summer weather.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the warmth won't last unfortunately...Saturday's high near 30 has been cut back...
ReplyDeleteThis week looks like a scorcher (at least by Manitoba summer 2009 standards).
ReplyDeleteModels are trending towards a low from the southwest to pass by on Friday. Looks as though it will take the same route every other low has in that it will move to the northeast, strengthen, and put us into that cool northwest flow...yet again. Temperatures I would expect to be around 20C by Sunday.
Enjoy it for what it is worth. This could be it for summer '09.
I think that the low that will move through on Friday won't hang around like the past lows Chris. The flow is almost zonal and a blocking pattern isn't present...based on the 12z GFS anyways.
ReplyDeleteSevere weather chances for Southman look to be on Wednesday and Friday. This will end our high temp chances, but we'll be normal to slightly below normal after that. But we should recover by the middle of the following week!
I'm looking forward to the increasing humidity as the weekend approaches.
And Jim...I didn't make it to Minneapolis. I was on that monster tornadic supercell that developed west of Sioux Falls, but unfortunately it hit the capped air mass to the East and died out quite quickly. I'm not to happy about this past weekend's chase...but I'll get over it!
Our hottest day looks to be tomorrow and possibly Wednesday before the storms arrive. We have a minor lull in high heat temps Thursday...but Friday might be quite humid if we get warm sectored like we're forecast too...hello CAP!
From now on I'm only chasing in Southern Manitoba! I've cap busted too many times this summer!
A few points...
ReplyDelete1) My chase criteria is even more restrictive... only within the city lol. Surprisingly, I actually saw some pretty good structure this year.
2) I think NAM is going berserk with the amount of drying/mixing in the downslope flow. GFS looks more reasonable with a more SSW flow and 850 hPa temps of 22 C. There is also still a lot of moisture on the fields which will enhance evapotranspiration and moderate temps somewhat. I am comfortable going with 31/33 C Tuesday/Wednesday.
3) Widespread severe convection appears quite unlikely on Wednesday nite. Moisture is very shallow (very dry at 850 hPa) and any upper support will be in central interlake regions. Therefore I suspect cap will not break except for some localized high based cells. Best chance would for a lake breeze storm to brush north of the city. Also could be some garden variety showers in the more moist, post frontal environment.
4) Late this week looks more interesting in terms of tstorms with good moisture advection ahead of upper low and baroclinic ribbon draped across intl border.
I tend to agree with the thunderstorm assessment for Wednesday. With temperatures expected to be in the mid thirties, along with a high temp/td spread, I expect a very strong cap. The cold front moving in is relatively strong, if you consider the temp will drop from 35 on Wed to 26 on Thurs. However, I don't expect to see much upper cooling ahead of the front, which means the cap will probably stay in place. Since CAPE values are only expected to be around 1500J/kg, the storms won't be able to "punch" through the cap like on extremely unstable days. Overall I wouldn't expect anything severe south of the lakes.
ReplyDeleteMy forecast for Steinbach is 33/36 (Tues/Wed)...and 32/35 for Winnipeg. Since my numbers are based on "downtown Steinbach", I suppose I would be using the Forks as my Winnipeg reference.
Friday looks quite interesting, assuming we get sufficient daytime heating. With CAPE values expected to be around 3000J/kg, along with a strong LLJ and approaching trough, we could see something significant. On the other hand, if we don't get sufficient heating (likely high twenties or thirty), the cap won't break.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt's sure nice out there as of 1pm.
ReplyDeleteTemps around 28 with a dewpoint of 19. It's a shallow 19 but hey it's nice to see dewpoints around 20.
Tomorrow looks Capped! And I mean capped! The nose at 850mb is so large that it'll take some major cooling to erode the cap enough to fire off some storms. It's funny though...the NAM model does break out precipitation after 1pm in Southern Manitoba...but I think the precip is overdone.
Friday raises my brows a bit though. EHI's are cranked up around the border with a Low moving towards North Central ND by Friday afternoon. Triple point looks to set up from Melita to Minot. We have a stout cap to deal with but I think the dynamical forcing should aid in firing off some deep convection. All modes apply on Friday for severe weather. If a supercell is able to form and roll along the warm front situated around the international border...then tornado chances will quickly increase.
It's Tuesday...so we'll have to wait and see. In the mean time enjoy the heat...tomorrow (Wed) looks blistering hot! Like mid 30's for Southern Manitoba!
I love that tropical feel when you step out the door and it hits like a two ton of bricks!!!
ReplyDeleteI been waiting all YEAR for this and gonna enjoy every minute of it!!!!
Numbers say it's 30, but it's really 29.5 now. Maybe within the next hour...
ReplyDelete30.0 C currently at the airport, officially now the first 30 degree day since June in the city.
ReplyDeletehttp://vortex.plymouth.edu/gifs/090812035826.gif
ReplyDeleteLook at those temps forecast by the WRF!
Why is it that the GFS, WRF, etc. models have come into agreement that temps could get that high, yet EC does not think so?
I know EC uses the CMC model mostly; is there a way for the public to see model data of temperature, etc from the CMC?
We hit 31.2 °C at 3:47 PM on August 11 according to MLBYWS (My little back yard weather station). That would make it a high temperature event.
ReplyDeleteHumidity is elevated today. 29/19 at my place. This means it is highly unlikely that those extreme temperatures advertised by the models will occur today. 38C isn't possible in this setting with dewpoints near 20C. If surface moisture spiked down, into the low teens or single digits, then higher temperatures would be possible.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty warm here...
ReplyDeleteTemp: 34C
Dewp: 22C
Humidex: 43C
P.S.
ReplyDeleteRight now the SBCAPE is 6000J/kg over my place...too bad it is capped.
By Contrast, MLCAPE is barely 1000J/kg.
Cold front moving thru and as I suspected abundant evapotranspiration capping temperatuers. Winds were too lite to generate good mixing and allowed boundary layer moisture to pool.
ReplyDeleteLine of elevated cumulus lagging behind front. Models hint at low level warm and moist advection above shallow northerly flow at surface thru midnite. I think this will be enough to generate a post frontal line of showers tonite. Better organized LLJ will crank up aheand of disturbance coming up from Montana Thursday and Friday nite.
Right now it appears best forcing will stay across the border.. however the models are depicting lots of elevated convection forming NW of the mid level cap (700 hPa temps of 10-12 C). Consequently the potential exists for organized convection (not severe) Thurs and Fri. This will keep us cool as surface low and warm front take shape over the Dakotas.
We will have to watch the exact track and position of the low/warm front... but right now it looks like SE Manitoba may briefly tap the warm sector on Saturday. At this point the surface based action appears to stay SE of Winnipeg.
Post frontal convection firing up with watches out...
ReplyDeletepersistent southerly flow above surface has deepened moisture sufficiently for storms to develop. Right now the heaviest cells are occurring in areas to the south which heated out a bit better ahead of front and therefore have higher instability. The north end of the line is only producing virga as the precip encounters drier air at midlevels. The south end of the city may once again get clipped - lets see what happens...
Tough to track these storms with all the ground clutter.
ReplyDeleteThe extremely buoyant air mass in the RRV and SE MB may be able to sustain the storms. However, the cap also remains strong and didn't want these storms to start in the first place.
Loud thunder and a trickle of rain over the UofM Gorgeous double Rainbow over St vital Park and finally now a hint of a breeze
ReplyDeleteThose missing Mosquitos are alive and hungry tonight, the joys of hot weather
ReplyDeleteSome real nice mammatus over here in Transcona...just catching the edge of the storm here.
ReplyDeleteHuge right turning, high precip supercell near east braintree (warned)
ReplyDeleteLocally.. impressive lightning display and training of cells NW of the city. Stay tuned...
The question tonite is.. how much rain is actually falling to the ground... anybody from NW Winnipeg?
ReplyDeleteI'm on the north side of Winnipeg at the perimeter/Hwy 8. So far we have had short duration showers of a couple of minutes each. Another one just started now.
ReplyDeleteThanks Daryl...
ReplyDeleteTraining of cells continues just north of the city from a near Poplar Point to Rosser to Stony Mountain line. Normally this would spell a flash flood situation. It remains to be seen how much of that prcip is being eaten away by the dry mid levels...
Now getting heavy rain mixed with hail about 1/4 inch. I would have thought it was to warm to get hail tonight. Intense lightning as well.
ReplyDeleteTWN Beta Past-Forecast Radar shows leading edge of line Severe Ts reaching west perimeter Winnipeg at 2:30PM. Link on my name
ReplyDeleteTWN is dipping the STS (severeTS) line southward and slowing the west to east progress. Is this another SW Winnipeg event only?
ReplyDeleteJustin, Dan(s), Scott, Any potential for this?
What should we expect as far as precip goes regarding this low passing by this weekend? 40+mm? And what does it look like as far as temps go after this weekend?
ReplyDeleteEC Woodlands Radar has a crescent shaped line of TStms from north of Dauphin to Brandon since 6am which dissolves and disappears in the last few frames.
ReplyDeleteEC Foxwarren shows nothing for the entire 3 hours
TWN Radar had until the last 40 mins forecast this to pass thru wpg mid pm and now has dissolved it as well.
Just another learning experience....
That crescent shaped line of storms was Anomalous Propagation...in other words...it is nothing. It occurs when the radar beam ducts beneath a sharp temperature inversion above the surface.
ReplyDeleteAnyways...this evening/overnight looks really primed for Nocturnals over the Red River Valley and points Eastward...in fact the Jets are better aligned tonight then they were last night...
But Saturday....wow! The 850mb jet really gets going...Saturday looks the best for elevated storms over us...heavy rain looks likely...better build that arc. Tornado chances look low over the next few two days due to the massive cap over us. If the cap proves to be weaker...well then!
Anyways...about tonight...one prog sounding for Winnipeg this evening shows a high likelihood of elevated severe thunderstorms with the risk of large hail. Shear is great...so rotating updrafts look possible; hence the large hail risk!
Could be a loud night around here...
Anomalous returns from the Woodlands radar are especially common along the Manitoba escarpment as the beam refracts thru the denser (colder) layer near the surface and encounters the upslope terrain.
ReplyDeleteLLJ between 925 and 850 hPa kept elevated convection going thru the nite. It will persist and intensify fueling more showers and tstorms thru the weekend. Convective lines will form north of the stalled surface front to our SE... exactly where is tough to say. Saturday aft/eve looks very interesting as warm sector brushes us and LLJ ramps up. I would expect discrete cells to form along warm front and congeal into a large convective complex. The potential is definitely there for heavy rain this weekend...
This is not an easy forecast.
ReplyDeleteSince there is no defined trigger (besides a warm frontish thing), the cap may or may not break. Daytime heating will be good, probably getting us to around 30C and moisture will also be good (tds around 20C). Moisture depth is also good today (850mb tds around 12C). Shear is also good, with 0-6km bulk shear at 40 to 50kts. All these factors add up to be an extremely unstable and volatile atmosphere, which is simply being held back by capping.
Long story short, if storms become surface based (by breaking the cap), then we will experience the most severe outbreak of the year. On the other hand, if the cap doesn't break, elevated storms similar to yesterday will occur. Elevated storms may or may not become severe, it is hard to tell.
My advice; watch the satellite, radar, and NWS mesoanalysis to track capping and tcu development.
Intriguing forecasts and explanations.
ReplyDeleteI tought there was something familiar. Those imaginary AP Tds have been mostly missing for the last 2 summers ...// so has summer..
Like . the Plymouth/ Mpls SCell spawned tornados in the dark became straight line wind damage when the sun came up. contra to visible cloud rotation that was unmistakeable at dusk from 8 miles away in Rogers mn
Scott ... warnings are out for Steinbach . Are they the surface storms you reff'd?
ReplyDeleteLast nights lighting was a little to INTENSE for me!!!
ReplyDeleteI mean.... I love watching lighting storms but I was a little to much for me!!!
Question!
Is one safe watching a storm from his apartment balcony???
You know you have all that protection ABOVE you but could the lighting still somehow hit you by coming horizontal???????
Theoretically you and your balcony furniture can get hit.
ReplyDeleteWhat was your golf ball doing on a balcony
I would take an unplayable lie and retreat to the (19th Hole)clubhouse. Those Graphite clubs are great conductors.
Personally I've seen it travel down trees crossover then down a Fireplace chimney and then straight across a living room to the opposite wall in the same house. (Charleswood)
Thanks for the explanation about the phantom precipitation. Those radar returns didn't look right.
ReplyDeleteYesterday MLBYWS reported a maximum temperature of 32.4 °C, making it a high temperature event for my house.
Ominous altocumulus castellanus noted before sunset indicating elevated instability.
ReplyDeleteAnticipate more elevated storms tonite as LLJ cranks up again especially just SE of Winnipeg.
Nocturnals likely tonight. Severe Storms are currently near the MB/SK Border. MLCAPES are quite high too...so as the storms roll East...they should intensify and hold together for quite some time!
ReplyDeleteTime for some more lightning photography! I'll set my alarm for Thunder...then it's snap snap snap!
Nice line of storms just developed just South of the City, looking to be here in a few minutes
ReplyDeleteAnyone get any hail????
ReplyDeleteMe. Small hail a short while ago in St. Vital.
ReplyDeleteLooks to me like a storm cell affecting S. Winnipeg just split, and the southern part right turned just south of the city.
Check Radar, maybe I'm not crazy/the only one who sees it. Lol.
Convection building back and training will of intense cells will occur along a Pelican Lake to Elm Creek to Winnipeg line... extreme precip totals will be possible along this corridor by tomorrow morning...
ReplyDeleteHmm...cells in extreme SW Manitoba near the international border have caught my attention.
ReplyDeleteBeing such that they are closer in range with the Minot AFB NEXRAD RADAR site, I tend to trust those readings more than Foxwarren.
But...on my GRLevel 3 RADAR software, it's showing cells in the region with 2.50-3.00" hail. Ouch.
Click my name to see a screenshot of the monster hail I'm talking about.
ReplyDeleteSevere thunderstorm warnings going up all over the place!!!
ReplyDeleteNow this is intense!!!
Pea Hail central Ft Garry now
ReplyDeleteTorrential rains and pea sized hail in St. Vital now.
ReplyDeleteThis should give us a good start on another month of 100+mm of precipitation.
ReplyDeleteINCREDIBLE lighting show right now!!!
ReplyDeleteThat is some louuud thunder too!
ReplyDeleteKnocked me off the air ..MTS
ReplyDeleteWell.. I keep getting woken up lol. Interesting how the cells absolutely refuse to build into central Winnipeg. Southeastern parts of the city to La Salle and back thru Starbuck and Elm Creek could get 75 to 100 mm tonite alone... same old story.
ReplyDeleteWow.
ReplyDeleteShaw's still okay...or else I wouldnt be on the internet, haha.
Jon trust Minot x Turtle mountains. According to minot radar 6.0 to 8.0 inch rainfall amts reported near Bottineau last spring
ReplyDelete...and the rain is back to torrential with a bit larger hail this time I think...not quite but close to dime sized...or maybe still pea...hard to tell in the dark haha
ReplyDeleteDaniel those 30 to 35 C temps were in that same line yesterday Carleton,Island Lakes and River Park South
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of rain.
ReplyDeleteStorm Total Rainfall estimates from Minot RADAR in SW MB have been up to 4 or 5" where storms have been training for the past few hours.
Thats quite a snaky lineup SouthWest of Brandon. Minot to Melita was Justins forecast Will make Brandon for breakfast coffee .
ReplyDeleteJon those were the estimates. Actuals were 20% of that.lol
ReplyDeleteSo far on the North side of the city we only have had about 2-3 minutes of rain when the first system came through earlier. So far staying just south of us. Maybe making up for last night as we got dumped on big time last night. Quite the lighting show to the south with some big boomers.
ReplyDeleteI know, I'm talking about current RADAR estimates...not QPF estimates.
ReplyDeleteBasing on reflectivity rates aaaannnd where storms were earlier training pver each other, a good 4" is likely to have fallen in the past few hours in some parts of the SW.
"At 4:45 AM weather radar continues to show an west to east line of intense thunderstorms moving eastward at 50 km/h through Southern Manitoba. Brief heavy downpours, hail as large as toonies and intense lightning have been associated with these storms."
ReplyDeleteThats gotta be what...1" to 1 1/4" sized hail in places?
Quite the night in Windsor Park. Just before 4:00am a loud crash of thunder had me up and out of bed without even touchng the floor. This was followed by an hour long power outage. I think I shat the bed with that thunder, wow.
ReplyDeleteNot much in the way of hail at my place, a couple pellets.
I heard someone from La Salle called into CJOB saying they received "pop-can" size hail. Can anyone confirm this or was this a bit delusional.
This is what summer is all about in my opinion. Hot during the day, storms at night.
By far the most severe storm in two years for Steinbach. 38mm of rain in 45min and 10min of dime sized hail!
ReplyDeleteWe had baseball sized hail around 4 this morning in La Salle with torrential rain. I picked up some and put them in the freezer.
ReplyDeleteScott did that hail cause a lot of damage to vehicles and roofs or was it just small enough to avoid that? I wonder how widespread that hail was there will be a lot of crop damage with 10 minutes of hail?
ReplyDeleteThanks for confirming anon. I have never heard the "pop-can size hail" reference before so I assumed it was a bit far-fetched. Baseball size hail certainly isn't anything to sneeze at. Anyone reporting hail damage?
ReplyDeleteBack in 97 when we lived in St. Adolphe, we had even bigger than baseball sized hail. Smashed all my downspouts, pot-marked my wood fence, broke my neighbour's window and just wrecked any car on the street.
ReplyDeleteJust looking around the neighbourhood this morning there does not appear to be much damage but will have to check out the roof later.
It sounds like we got off easy in south River Heights. Plenty of lightning, but very little precipitation; MLBYWS collected 6 mm, and no hail or wind. I checked outside around 3:30 AM and the humidity was palpable. The lightning seemed to be cloud to cloud only.
ReplyDeleteGorilla Lightning and Bird's Hill Lightning were very different in their interpretation of last night's approaching storm event. Bird's Hill showed nothing immediately south of the city, Gorilla did.
Shaw Channel 9 had a banner with the storm warning as soon as it was issued, no evidence of it on the Weather Network or Channel 48, although I didn't check those much. Hats off to Shaw for that.
So, some interesting weather events, and likely to continue today it seems.
What a night last night.
ReplyDeleteWe have had quite the hail size reports coming into the Weather Office this morning. Hail ranging from Nickel to Toonie to Walnut to Golfball to Baseball.
Baseball hail is the largest...and apparently we are getting pictures of the hail later this morning.
Lightning last night was insane. Storms likely fired on the Lake Breeze boundary that stalled South of the city. The question I ask was if these were Surface Based storms or if they were Slightly elevated? Most major league hail events are caused by surface based severe thunderstorms.
On radar, the storm that produced the monster hail in La Salle right moved away from the main line of storms that was moving ENE towards YWG. It cut SE over The Sanford/La Salle/Domain areas...and sure enough our largest hail reports are coming in from these areas.
To summarize, it was a great Nocturnal Event. Models actually handled the episode well.
The nocturnal threat for tonight looks quite low when compared to last night and the night before.
Severe chances look to be in ND/MN today... We may also see some flare up surface-based thunderstorms develop in SC/SE MB today if we can clear up and heat up. There are also some boundaries around Southman, so surface based storms may actually focus themselves in these areas. Actually there is some clearing coming in to SW MB as I type...so hmm!!!
Thunderstorm chances are better for tomorrow morning through the afternoon as the LLJ refocuses itself over Southern Manitoba yet again as a low skirts by.
All-in-all it has been a great few days...talk about a compressed summer severe weather season for Southern Manitoba!
Cheers,
Daryl...
ReplyDeleteAccording to NWS, hail only causes notable damage when it gets to 25mm in diameter. The hail around Steinbach was only about 20mm in diameter. 20mm hail is severe, according to EC, but doesn't cause the same kind of damage that 25mm+ hail would. Nevertheless, I still think it is senseable to keep the 20mm criteria in Canada, since we are less accustomed to hail than our southern neighbours. Also, if dime sized hail is driven in strong winds it can easily cause greater damage.
There are reports of window damage in Steinbach from hail, but not around me. The storm probably dumped larger hail at the damage location.
Hi there!
ReplyDeleteCan anyone tell me why Environment Canada when issuing thunderstorm warnings keeps re- using the same text over and over for hours!
I mean they might change one word or add a word or two.
I mean I understand there are so many storms that it would take to long to write out a warning for each severe storm....
but they at least give more details rather than large hail strong winds and heavy rain.
I like the NWS system of very specific warning boxes and descriptions of current or past damage!
some great pictures here.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theweathernetwork.com/your_weather/details/620/1418212/1/camb0244?ref=ugc_city_tumbs
Last nights storms were elevated. Abundant altocumulus was noted in the evening and the storms formed after dark as the LLJ ramped up. Warm air advection above shallow ENE flow at surface.. classic elevated set up. I am not sure what role was played by any outflow boundaries.. but the cut off from forcing from LLJ was very sharp on the models last nite. That is why I said to expect convection especially just SE of the city. Storms rooted above the boundary layer can still produce damaging hail.
ReplyDeleteModels do show a more bifurcated LLJ focused into central Minnesota and SE Saskatchewan in the overnite period. But by morning, I would not rule out elevated convection building north into southern RRV again. Some uncertainty yet on cloud trends and exact position of warm front and LLJ for tomorrow.. stay tuned.
PS... btw I would love to see some precipitation estimates from Woodlands radar. Strong cells repeatedly trained over the La Salle area and out along the highway 1 corridor to the Ontario border where some locations doubtlessly picked in excess of 75 mm. Not even a mention of heavy rain (only briefly the hail) in this morning's focn... disappointing. Flash flood situations are extremely dangerous and likely cause more deaths than tornadoes. There needs to be better coordination, in my modest opinion, between the province and EC regarding such threats.
ReplyDeleteRob seemed to have great resources for actual MB Ag Mesonet was one source which he used in the spring.see below
ReplyDeleteJon I was referring to my experience and Robs answers on BLOG April 29th which begins NWS Storm Total Precipitation Radar > 125mm became 20 -40 max 45 at Mohall near Bottineau.
Daniel...
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Starbuck weather station (a few kms away from Sanford), that area received about 25mm of rain. Starbuck is on the northern fringe of the heaviest precip, so La Salle could easily have double that.
RADAR estimates show a clear swath of heavy rain south of Winnipeg. The swath seems to range from 25 to 100mm. It is hard to determine a number for a specific location though. Click my name for the estimate.
La Broquerie had 45mm in town (24Hrs). source Laverendre Golf course
ReplyDeleteCottonwood GC 40K east on Hwy 1 closed for 2 days due to rain.
Kingswood (Lasalle) and Laverendre(La Broquerie), open despite at least 45mm)
Thanks for sharing that Scott.. useful product to have access to.
ReplyDeleteYeah looks like a good swath of 50-75 mm of rain south of the city roughly along highway 1 to Kenora.
Thanks to anonymous as well for that info
ReplyDeleteOn the radar graphic Cottonwood Golf course is approx halfway between the "e" in Winnip"e"g and the "e" in St"e"inbach
ReplyDeleteSo for Saturday is their any chance that rain might just miss us or we dead set in the sights of mother nature. I have so much to do tomorrow and unfortunately it does not go good with rain.
ReplyDeleteE.C.'s weather warnings are stictly a CYA (cover your ass) E.C. doesn't have the time, tools, or talent to provide focused warnings. If you wanna know if you're gonna be hit, you either look aoutside or look at the weather network's radar images. E.C.'s forecats warnings and watches suck big time! They could close down all the forecast offices and we wouldn't know the difference. In fact we might be better off. The Weathernetwork is Canada's leading choice for forecasts, period!
ReplyDeleteWell at least they can spell, more than I can say about you. Obviously you don't know what you are talking about, and even more obvious, is you couldn't spell it out even if you did know.
ReplyDeleteOver 110 Posts ago Chris WP provided his 3 predictions. Halfway thru August the 9 consecutive month record for Brrrr..Below Avg Temps looks a sure thing.
ReplyDeleteAny updates Chris??
And for those Ark builders I think we should speed up the finish date. The 12 consecutive month moving avg Precipitation record has to be close.
ReplyDeleteQuestion. Are there any weather related prognostications not mentioned yet that should be considered in the design. eg Skip the Solar Panels Sunshine will be minimal. Install windpower turbines instead
Wind turbines are a must. You'll definately want to add extra insulation and lots of lighting. Maybe some way to capture the rain water as well.
ReplyDeleteAnon,
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure we'll smash the 9 consecutive month record anymore. I'm thinking we'll see about 4 or 5days of close to normal temps, then another warmup busting that 30Celsius mark. It will be close.
Even if we saw another two 30C days, it is unlikely that we would end up above average.
ReplyDeleteThe first week of August was below average and next week will also be below average. This means we already have 1/2 of the month below normal. This week was above average (not entirely), so assuming we get an addition 30C day you could figure that we had one full week above average. Really this leaves one wildcard week left.
The last week of the month may decide how the month will turn out. If that week is near normal, the month will probably be below normal. If that week is above-normal, then the month will probably be close to normal. When I talk about 'normal' I usually talk about the average high. Rob uses the mean to determine whether the month is above or below normal. The mean is a more scientifically correct indicator, but I prefer the average high, because most people don't care about the low (because they are sleeping anyway). The mean figures the entire day, but since most people judge a day by its high, I think that makes more sense for most folks.
We only need 7 more days of glorious summer heat.
ReplyDeleteLast I checked the mean to the 13th was .3 to .4 below average with a cool week coming. If we continue as forecast the next 7 days, we need a last week of August mean of 2.0+ over the monthly mean and 3.0+ over the last august week's mean, That would make up for the rest of the month.
I'm for it if it means I can postpone the Ark building
Wow is it humid out there!
ReplyDeleteNice evening for the Bomber game.
I miss nocturnals!
Imressive looking cloud bank southeast. Thats far more typical of summer late afternoon early evening formations... over Steinbach or Braintree..or somewhere east of Winnipeg
ReplyDeleteRegina rec'd 50% more rain than we did today..
Are we doing an encore tomorrow?
Finally 4 Days of tropical weather and two named Tropical Storms in the Atlantic. SUMMER is here and its , bloody well time ,.
ReplyDeleteClear skies in dry slot in N Dakota has allowed for some destabilization. Another round of convection at interface of clear skies and deeper moisture. Expect this round of showers to move in shortly.. perhaps affecting more the central and eastern parts of the city.
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