Thursday, November 25, 2010

Uncle!! 20+ cm snowfall caps snowy week in Winnipeg/southern Manitoba..

The third major snowfall in one week has dumped over 20 cm of snow in Winnipeg over the past 2 days, capping a snowy week that has seen 50 cm dumped on the city since last Thursday. This latest storm produced 23 cm of snow at my place (15 cm Wednesday + 8 cm today), following a 12 cm snowfall on Sunday and a 14 cm snowfall last Thursday and Friday. General snowfall amounts of 15 to 20 cm were widespread over southern Manitoba with this latest storm, especially over the Red River valley. The succession of snowfalls has kept snowplow operators busy, and will require 3 days to clean off residential streets in Winnipeg that have become bogged with snow. The snowy start to winter is in sharp contrast to last year which saw only 1.4 cm of snow all of November, and 68 cm for the entire winter. The snow has caused considerable inconvenience to travellers and commuters, but has transformed southern Manitoba into a winter wonderland. (Winnipeg Sun photo, Legislative Grounds, Winnipeg)

11 comments:

  1. A few days to dig out before perhaps a few cm Sunday night into Monday. At this point, it doesn't look like much.. perhaps a couple of cm but we'll keep our eyes on it for any changes.

    BTW.. an article in the Free Press today has some erroneous snowfall stats for Winnipeg. It quotes that the city's snowiest November was in 1996 at 51.9 cm. This is incorrect. Nov 1996 had 62.8 cm, which isn't even the snowiest Nov on record. That title belongs to Nov 1955 at 80.3 cm.

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  2. Don't you just love when the media gets their facts straight....(sigh)

    They should have consulted the weather experts to get it right!!

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  3. Question becomes how warm we can get this weekend with all the new snow cover. Nice recovery in temperatures off to our south and west. Thermal ridge at 850 hPa crests over us late tomorrow with temps at that level finally reaching 0 C again. However light SSE valley flow will ensure poor mixing and therefore surface temps likely remain below zero (and we may dealing with some fog by overnite Sat with moisture from some snow melt off to our SW trapped beneath temp inversion). Interestingly, both NAM and GFS hint at better mixing (down from 925 hPa) on Sunday as flow turns ENE ahead of that next disturbance giving us a decent chance of seeing at least 0 C here at Winnipeg... that would be a small victory after all the atrocious weather of late

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  4. Rob...just saw this in the 2pm PASPC discussion:

    MODELS INDICATE ANOTHER STORM WILL MOVE SOUTH OF MANITOBA SUNDAY
    NIGHT AND MONDAY WITH GLOBAL INDICATE NEAR 8-10 MM OF PCPN.
    TOTAL SNOWFALL AMOUNTS IN WINNIPEG FOR NOVEMBER IS ALREADY
    CLOSE TO 50 CM. SO IF LONG RANGE MODELS ARE CORRECT THEN NOVEMBER
    2010 WILL BE THE SNOWEST ON THE RECORD. PREVIOUS RECORD IS 62.8
    CM SET IN 1996.

    I believe your comment about 1955 being the snowiest winter on record is correct. Do you know why your colleague(s) have a different number?

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  5. Hi

    I wanted to make Rob and others aware of some new ND AWOS's that are now available via NWSTG (NWS communication center gateway). The state of ND is paying for these new AWOS's to get out. Previously we have had to call them. Not all are available yet...but they all will in the near future. The company and communications company that installed them are working out some comms issues for those not yet available. Each one has a weather sensor and a Precipitation amount sensor with observations sent out every 20 minutes.

    These new stations do not show up on most of the usual commercial websites because they are so new. They can be looked at via RAP UCAR surface page.

    There are several right along the Manitoba border....

    K06D - Rolla
    K2C8 - Cavalier
    K96D - Wahalla
    KGAF - Grafton
    KRUG - Rugby
    K46D - Carrington (btwn DVL & JMS)
    KD50 - Crosby (very near Estevan)
    KS25 - Watford City (west cntrl ND)
    Hazen - KHZE (nw of BIS)
    K20U - Beach (west of DIK)
    K7L2 - Linton (south of BIS)

    Sites KD55 Langdon, K5H4 Harvey, K2D5 Oakes, KGWR Gwinner, and K08D Tioga (btwn Minot and Williston) are not yet in the system.

    Go to the RAP surface page and enter the 4 letter ID's to get latest obs.

    http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/surface/

    Rob --- I dont know how you guys at PAASPC Winnipeg get NWS AWOS data (sites such as Hallock MN or Devils Lake ND). You might have to have these new sites added to your system to get the MTRxxx obs. We had to.

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  6. Scott..

    An oversight.. that should read snowiest November since 1996. But November 1955 is indeed the snowiest November on record for Winnipeg.

    Another note.. Winnipeg airport has now recorded 709 mm of total precipitation this year.. the 4th wettest year on record (since 1873), and only 14 mm away from being the wettest year ever (1962 at 723 mm) A very wet year, now an early deep snowpack.. things not looking too good for next spring.

    Interesting that the GLB is showing 8-10 mm water equivalent of snow for Sunday night/Monday over southern MB.. that's the most of any of the models right now, although it may be due to some upslope over SW Manitoba. Ensembles show half that amount for Winnipeg.. which may translate to about 3-5 cm of snow. Best energy and lift will be to our south, so I'm not convinced we'll see those amounts. As always.. we'll be watching and keeping you updated..

    A couple of links to monitor snow chances..

    HPC snow probability map:

    http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/pwpf_24hr/wwd_24hr_probs_sn.php

    GEM/GLB precip type output..

    http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/cmdn/pcpn_type/pcpn_type_gem_reg.html

    (select "NOAM" for ZOOM, and increase loop speed to see 120 hr progression of pcpn type across Canada)

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  7. Hi Dan..

    Yes, one of our staff already informed us of these sites, and we can access them on our circuit! We also have them showing up on our alerting software.. and we've informed our monitoring division to add them for some of our plotting software. Great to get more sites with vsby and pcpn sensors just near the border. Thanks! (sure wish we could return the favour with more obs on our side!)

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  8. Great to know you guys are on top of things....sometimes I wish I could say the same about our national headquarters in the data regard :)

    I have a local point and click map avbl on our office intranet and I got all those CWB sites there as well as the AG stations.

    Crazy only 14 mm away from the wettest year ever!

    Dan

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  9. Rob!
    There has been about 3 days in between each storm system and that trend seems to continue!

    Another snow event on Monday and maybe more on the way!
    Ask me a month ago and I would never have thought that this much snow would have fallen!

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  10. Do you know how much snow have we had so far this winter, compared to all of last winter, as of today?

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  11. Anon..

    I've measured 50.6 cm so far this month. Last winter, I measured 68 cm for the entire winter. Click on my name for official Charleswood snowfall stats..

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