Sunday, December 19, 2010

Storm system to graze southern MB with snow Monday...

A storm system moving across the Dakotas will bring an area of snow over North Dakota Monday into Monday evening, with some snow from this system brushing southern Manitoba along the US border. Winter storm watches and warnings have been posted for much of North Dakota in advance of this system with snowfalls of 10-20 cm expected from Crosby through Jamestown into the Fargo area. Slightly less snow is expected further north and east, however accumulating snow is forecast up to the Canadian border including the Pembina/Emerson area where 5 cm or more is possible. The area of snow will drop off sharply north of the border with little or no snow likely north of Highway 2 in southern Manitoba. Motorists are advised to be prepared for winter travel conditions if travelling into North Dakota Monday into Monday night.

24 comments:

  1. Devils Lake region just got slammed with 14 inches of snow last week. Now another 8 inches tomorrow!

    You know Rob, The way the winter was starting I thought that Winnipeg and the Red River Valley would be the epicenter of snow this winter...but there is so many locations that have surpassed us already in snow amounts!

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  2. Snowfall warnings for far western Manitoba!
    I wonder if Winnipeg will see anything out of this storm??

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  3. Previous model runs did a pretty poor job on tracking the upper low, probably due to the very abnormal northward track of the cold air over the Prairies.

    As such, snow track will push much further north. 700mb advections will remain mainly south of the border, so the heaviest snow should still stay down in the southern stream. Upper low will track further north through S. MB bringing light snow all the way to Winnipeg and north. Amounts likely 2-4cm on northern edge of snow increasing to 10cm at the Intl. Border.

    Pilot mound may see local amounts of 15-20cm with upslope flow. Slight chance that Virden may also see warning-level amounts of snow with the developing NW/SE band of heavy snow in the developing trowal.

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  4. Once again the 49th appears to be the cutoff line for (major)Snow.

    Hopefully theres a linkage to the negative NAO a la 09-10 Winter (Coldest US , Warmest Canadian winter)

    If not, I have a great Condo deal for you-all...Price reduced 20%
    Possession Between Jan and March 1
    beautiful RR waterfront Views.. only 50 feet from the winter ice edge.

    All sales final (lol)

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  5. Another snowstorm in Minneapolis.. expecting another 5-7" today into tonight. Should make for an interesting game this evening between the Vikings and da Bears. As of this morning, MSP was 9 inches away from their snowiest December of all time.

    As for us, the snow continues to plod along the intl border with some impressive snowfall rates of 1-3 cm/hr near and south of the border. Sat pix indicate some embedded convection which would enhance snowfall rates. As mentioned, snow is pushing a little further north than models have been advertising.. with 10-15 cm now expected over SW MB and along the intl border and 2-5 cm possible along the Trans Canada corridor this afternoon through tonight..

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  6. European model showing 5-6cm for Winnipeg and 10 to 15cm along the border. There is no data point for Steinbach, but just eyeballing the maps, I'd say we are in the 5 to 10cm range. This will be an interesting battle of the models. GEM giving really heavy amounts over all of Southern Manitoba as of the 12Z run (10mm around Brandon = 15cm+ of snow), with the NAM and GFS running the 10cm line for snow right along the American border.

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  7. I would argue that given the current snowfall in the Virden/Melita regions, keeping the heaviest snow near the border would be a shockingly incorrect forecast :)

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  8. Well I guess this is the time when you have to ask did someone drop the ball. I'm no expert but I've been watching that system since early this morning and thought that sure looks like it's going to hit Winnipeg. Yet they never changed the forecast until 4:00pm when it was nearly at the back door. The system looks pretty strong and 5cm seems almost a little on the light side from the way it looks on Radar.

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  9. The forecast for Winnipeg had periods of light snow beginning this evening or late this afternoon for the whole day. The forecasters probably thought it was a "good enough" forecast and that it didn't need to be changed until the regular issue at 4PM.

    That being said, looking at satellite imagery the main wave associated with this shortwave is pulling pretty far off to the east. While the shortwave is pretty intense and has a lot of lift, it's moisture supply should slowly cut off from here on out as the main wave moves off, which means that the precipitation should begin to weaken from here on out.

    I'm beginning to feel that 5cm may be too much; it might be more like 2-4cm!

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  10. All I can go by is what I see. Like I said I'm no expert and I guess that's why. I guess I jumped the gun with the blame game. LOL

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  11. About 2.5cm of snow so far in Steinbach. We'll probably end up around 5cm by the time the snow ends tomorrow morning.

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  12. On the north side of the city it is just barely snowing yet. I talked to a friend on the south side and he said it was comming down pretty good. Looking at the radar it shows the snow doing exactly what Buffalo Seven was saying would happen

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  13. 4.5cm of snow so far in Steinbach. Looks like another couple cm possible today based on RADAR imagery.

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  14. Hi, does anyone know a good site to find out how much snow fell yesterday.

    I work for a snow company and it sure would be helpful to know how much snow fell the previous day.
    thanks!

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  15. 3 cm of snow in Charleswood as of 8 am this morning.. 23 cm snow on the ground.

    Looks like a general 2-5 cm of snow fell over Winnipeg and the northern RRV into SE MB.. with 10 cm over SW MB and the southern RRV. 10-20 cm reported south of the border over northern ND.

    Some snowfall reports from the past 24 hours..

    Winnipeg...... 3 cm
    Brandon ...... 7 cm
    Portage ...... 2 cm
    Snowflake..... 9 cm /near US border/
    Winkler ...... 7 cm
    Piney ........ 5 cm
    Steinbach .... 5 cm
    Pembina ND ...10 cm
    Grand Forks...11 cm

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  16. anonymous..

    Unforunately, snowfall observations are hard to come by in Canada (imagine that.. a cold weather country like Canada and we can't tell you how much snow fell) In Winnipeg, snowfall observations stopped in 2003 after continuous records since 1872. They only report melted snowfall now which doesn't help snow clearing operators much.. (was that 2 mm of melted snow 2 cm or 10 cm?)

    I keep snowfall observations for Charleswood, which basically substitutes for official snowfall obs for the city (even though amounts can vary significantly across the city) My obs can be found on EC's climate website (click on my name for link) That climate website will also show other localities that report snow in southern MB, but you have do to a search to find those places. Sometimes EC will post a storm summary on their website giving snowfall reports, but those are usually reserved for more significant snowfall events.

    Otherwise, you can check this blog as people often give snowfall reports around the Winnipeg area which can be very helpful during snowfall events.

    Hope that helps!

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  17. Thanks you very much!

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  18. Rob!
    You say 3 cm of snow this storm with 23 cm on the ground!

    23 cm of snow on the ground???
    All that snow we got in late November (55 cm) got compacted down or blown away???

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  19. 5.5cm so far in Steinbach. Still snowing, so our final total will be a hit higher...I'll let you know the storm total when the snow finally ends.

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  20. Dan P...For a graphical view of the snow compaction around Winnipeg and the rest of the RRV I use the NOHRSC Interactive Snow Map on my name and run the dates.

    Winnipeg comparisons from Jan 1 2010 are available but prior years are for extreme S'rn MB and ND.
    Note for years prior to 2010 a different graphical color scale was used.

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  21. That's right daniel... A lot of the snow we got in November was quite fluffy so it compacted quite a bit. My snowdepth in November was a maximum of 30-35 cm even though we got 55 cm in two weeks. (I take my snowdepth measurements in the middle of my backyard which is fairly open) Since then, snow has compacted even more with some of it blowing away or sublimating. The snowpack left now is a crystally snow composed entirely of ice crystals, with an almost sand or sugar-like texture to it,

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  22. BTW.. there's a story in today's Free Press that says today's high of -7C in Winnipeg would be the warmest Dec 21st in 40 years. This is completely false. We've had plenty of Dec 21st highs above -7C in the past 40 years.. including -4C in 2007, -3C in 2006 and +4C in 2003. Just wanted to set the record straight.. I hate seeing bad climate information being propagated through the media..

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  23. This is a couple of times the "media" ( no names mentioned) has got their stats all mixed up!!

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