11:00 am update: A severe thunderstorm watch has been issued for all of southern Manitoba including Winnipeg for the potential for severe thunderstorms this afternoon into this evening.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Hot humid day on tap.. strong thunderstorms possible this afternoon/evening?
Hot and more humid conditions will spread over southern MB today ahead of a trough of low pressure through Saskatchewan. Afternoon temperatures will reach the low thirties with dewpoints climbing into the uncomfortable low 20s today. This will send humidex values close to the 40C mark this afternoon across the RRV, and thus a humidex advisory has been issued for the area including Winnipeg. The big question is what will happen later this afternoon into this evening as the frontal trough approaches from the west. This trough will encounter the hot and humid airmass over southern MB to trigger some scattered thunderstorms later today.. some of which may be severe with heavy rain, hail and strong winds possible. There is even a risk of isolated tornadoes with any discrete supercells that develop. At this point, the best chance for convective development will be over the RRV, and SE MB into ND.. but hopefully, some weaker storms fire up in the RRV to give us some much needed rainfall. Will we miss out again, or will we finally see some rain today? Stay tuned..
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Latest guidance, including NAM now, coninues to suggest a split flow pattern today into tonight with strong storms over ND/nrn MN with surface wave, and also through interlake areas associated with frontal trough and better upper support. Minimal activity shown in between, including Winnipeg. If this was any other year, I'd say we'd have a chance of seeing something later today into this evening.. but this year..
ReplyDeleteI suppose ND storms have a chance of tracking across the border into srn RRV and SE MB later today/evening.. but that won't help northern RRV much. Hopefully some storms can fire up along the frontal trough to our west and survive into the RRV tonight.
Hopefully this, dare I say Drought, nay dearth of Precip will end with July.
ReplyDeleteI'm being totally selfish here, but this is exactly the summer I was hoping for. I certainly wouldn't mind the odd thunderstorm, but imo, that was the best July that I can remember.
ReplyDeleteKeep the days hot throughout August and some nocturnal thunderstorms and I'll write this up as the best summer I can remember.
It isn't a ''true'' summer without storms to me =( As far as I am concerned, it barely feels like summer has even begun cuz of it.
ReplyDeleteHi everyone,
ReplyDeleteI'm back from my trip to valley view camp in macgregor, mb. I gotta tell ya we had 3 rounds of storms on friday night and it had non stop lightning, from 1 am to 5am. Then we had more last night a little less than before. Any Storms here when I was gone?
let me know.
While I think were in for storms here in the city because EC mentioned a chance for supercell storms. Plus EC AWWS had said 48000 CB Cloud tops across the south. Perfect Day for me!
ReplyDeleteNo, no storms while you were gone Mike, not a surprise of course :P
ReplyDeleteThe rain looks to be tracking just south of Wpg right now following highway #2 eastward. Will we AGAIN have a near miss to the south. South Wpg may get a piece.
ReplyDeleteTops are growing to the west of Winnipeg.. hopefully those storms hold together by the time they reach the city!
ReplyDeleteShowers west of YWG captain. Shields up!!!
ReplyDeleteNo kidding, just watch that shield in action! Just eating away at the rain at the moment :(
ReplyDelete13-18 mm of rain according to CWB mesonet south of MacGregor through Holland and Notre Dame areas. Some good local downpours out of it.. but yes, appears to weakening as it heads east. Hopefully we can get some new cells regenerating..
ReplyDeleteLOOK AT ALL THE STORMS.....fall apart....(sniff)
ReplyDeleteOk..no storm BUT we are gonna get some rain. I'm sure will be all jumping for joy that we all get a free lawn watering :-)
ReplyDeleteIt looks like we're in for a nice, decent rain. I'm okay with no thunderstorms if it means we get a slight soaking rain.
ReplyDeleteAre Prayers have been answered..
ReplyDeleteFINALLY
Looks like we're going to get a little more rain shortly
ReplyDeleteA line of storms are trying to form!!!
ReplyDeleteLook at the radar.
From the interlake to west of Portage to the internatinal border.
What happened??? Did the cap break???
ReplyDeleteStorms just erupting onto the scene!!!
Ah, the sound of thunder after midnight. Tonight is the night...
ReplyDeleteWell.. it wasn't much.. but it was better than nothing. Generally 2-5 mm across Winnipeg last night (1.5 mm at YWG airport, 3 mm at the Forks) Heavier amounts to our west with 15-25 mm from the Holland area through Portage. Not much over SE MB.
ReplyDeleteLooks generally dry for the rest of the week. Models have a warm front pushing across southern MB Wednesday which may give a chance of some scattered elevated tstorms across SW MB into RRV/interlake but spotty. Lingering frontal trough on Thursday may also pop up some scattered cells. Another impulse tracks the Dakotas by Saturday with some storms possible mainly south of the border. Overall, hit and miss activity for most areas this week..
CPC has S. MB with below normal temperatures in their 6-10 day outlook. Not sure I believe that given the general consensus on this side of the boarder is for near to above normal temperatures lasting through the end of the weekend at least. Maybe beyond that? Though, they've also had us under above normal precip. for the last while and we all know how that's turned out!
ReplyDeleteMidweek next week models are showing a low strengthening and bringing some decent rain, then cooler weather behind it but who knows? It could be the major shift in the weather pattern to cooler and wetter to close out August or the current weather could build back in. Too hard to say at this point.
ReplyDeleteOh man, I don't beleive that it's august it's not gonna cool down. We have n't gotten any storms in the city for a month, we have an oppurtunity still. thats to far ahead to tell, besides the models aren't right past seven days. They change on a daily basis. we'll see whos right. lets just hope it waits until late september. EC still says above normal temps now through october. I don't know. Rob do you think the models agree on a cool down next week?
ReplyDeleteoops wrote the first part wrong, heres what I meant to say.
ReplyDeleteOh man, I still beleive that it's august it's not gonna cool down. We have n't gotten any storms in the city for a month, we have an oppurtunity still. thats to far ahead to tell, besides the models aren't right past seven days. They change on a daily basis. we'll see whos right. lets just hope it waits until late september. EC still says above normal temps now through october. I don't know. Rob do you think the models agree on a cool down next week?
Mike..
ReplyDeleteModels do show some cooler weather coming in early next week, but they also show temps rebounding again by mid to late week. I see CPC is now showing below normal temps for us in the 8-14 day period as well as above normal precip as the storm track sets up over the Northern Plains.. so perhaps they're seeing signs of a longer term pattern change coming up for us. They're usually pretty good at picking up on trends, and their confidence level on this forecast is a 4 (out of 5) so we'll have to see if this indeed signals an upcoming change for us in August..
thanks rob, Glad to hear it won't be cold all august long. I'm also looking forward towards the new storm pattern. thats more like it.
ReplyDeleteNice storms firing across the southern part of the province, One cell looks pretty decent looking and is thunderstorm warned south of carberry moving east towards winnipeg I suspect it is due to the high humidity and jet streak over us. This is our chance.
ReplyDeletePS. A thunderstorm watch is issued for Brandon,portage,manitou,melita and morden. May be extended east overnight. Will have to find out!
I'll keep bringing the updates, if i'm allowed.
Yes Mike I got an eye on those storms. Hopefully we can get a storm tonight!!
ReplyDeleteI'm still not completly convinced we'll get them, because of all the misses wev'e had so far this year. but If we do I'll be happy.
ReplyDeleteWhat direction are they heading?
ya I'm not staying on this storm for long looks like the chance is 30% from Nav Canada. Although I'd love to be near that storm in Turtle mountain that looks awesome.
ReplyDeleteTTYL
Looks like the anvil from the storms in SW Manitoba is extending NE over Winnipeg now. Sure looks cool at sunset!
ReplyDeleteHI THERE ROB!
ReplyDeleteI have a question for you!!!
A while back Environment Canada (weatheroffice) website stated that weatheroffice has now gone mobile!!
Awesome.
Since I DO NOT have internet access on my phone,I thought you might be able to tell me....
Were you not able to access weatheroffice on your phone prior do EC doing a "mobile version"???
You can ask BuffaloSeven for more info on this as he's the one who created the mobile version...
ReplyDeleteBut, from experience, you could and still can access Weatheroffice from a mobile device, though it's not very user friendly.
The mobile version isn't actually affiliated with EC to my knowledge. It pulls data from the University of Manitoba's Weather Central website and presents EC's data in a much more mobile-device friendly environment.
EC's also stated that Weatheroffice is now mobile-device friendly but I still don't use it. It's not nearly as good as the U of M Wx Central one.
ReplyDeletethe storm in turtle mountain looks like it has a gust front ahead of it on radar. kind of like a bowing 4km ahead of the actual storm neat. Nice to see the storm anvil at sunset as chris mentioned, gotta love nature!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all that info
ReplyDeleteDaniel..
ReplyDeleteAs Chris mentioned.. you could always access the Weatheroffice website from a mobile device. The mobile version is simply a stripped down version of the website that is better formatted for the small display screen of a mobile phone. Think of it as "Weatheroffice lite"
The mobile version of Weatheroffice is basically a stripped down version of U of M's weather central mobile app. Personally, I think EC's version is lacking.. something akin to "My first app". As Chris mentioned, the U of M mobile version is much better..
Thunderstorms tracking across southern RRV this morning (once again bypassing Winnipeg and northern RRV to the south). Some very heavy downpours being recorded with rainfall rates of over 250 mm/hr at times. Generally 10-20 mm of rain reported through the Morden/La Riviere areas this morning according to CWB mesonet. Looks like the south end of Winnipeg will be grazed with some light rain from this complex this morning.. but nothing much.
ReplyDeleteHow demorilising this is becoming.
ReplyDeleteWhy must everything have to go around us?? This is BS
ReplyDeleteHad a great storm here in Altona. Very heavy rain, intense lightning, and nickel/dime sized hail where I was. For pure volume, the most hail I've seen from one storm.
ReplyDeleteRecorded 21mm of rain this morning.
The reason why we keep missing these storms is because of the stupid jet pattern its south of us and carries the storms along it, if we were to have it a liitle more to the north we'd be sure to get some storms. Lets hope it moves more to the north. If it won't God help us!
ReplyDeleteOnce again today hugging the 49th
ReplyDeleteThat storm last nite .. Is that 30.2 B4 12 and another 5.6 this am in Deloraine
If you were to look at the 6z surface chart there’s a trough extending down from a low over Hudson Bay that angles itself back down over Southern Manitoba. The trough lies right along the border then starts to tilt north-east which is why the storms moved along the border then suddenly just south-east of the city began to track in a NE direction. Had this trough tilt been 100 further west we would’ve been hit so it sucks to think that. I'm frustrated too that we were missed yet again. That sentence is starting to sound like a broken record this summer. And so the waiting game continues. As somebody had mentioned here it just hasn't felt like a real summer with the lack of storms we've been experiencing. This summer sure has been a write-off so far.
ReplyDeleteYa I'm not liking this year so far, maybe summer of 2012 will be better thats the year that the world will come to an end.Maybe instead It'll be a big year for storms of catastrophic porportions. We'll have to wait for a perfect storm system to hit us, in order to get a chance. We need the rain, and soon.
ReplyDeleteMCS Could hit us on Friday night, Will see what The FOCN 45 is tomorrow to find out.
ReplyDelete@Daniel,
ReplyDeleteThe mobile website people are referring to can be found here:
http://cl.ly/6OYo
I developed and am maintaining it while (slowly) adding new features as my spare time allows.
@All,
The MCS chance for Friday I think is non-existant for Winnipeg, although I'd love to be wrong. It looks to me like it'll be a border-grazer with maybe Sprague getting a bit of the action. We'll have to wait and see...
19 is the high on Monday..must be a typo
ReplyDeleteRob
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe how much of a HISTORIC heat wave they have been having down south. It is just never ending.
They are talking about rolling blackouts from all the power usage.
Dallas is now at 36 straight days at 100 F or higher. That just blows my mind. I could not imagine that unrelenting heat. Every place you care to look up has pages after pages of records. A truly astonishing year.
What is the cause??? La nina?? or is it that once the drought starts it a hard cycle to get out of???
Is it true that Environment Canada is cutting back their staff at the weather office????
ReplyDeleteDetails anyone???
Rob, interested in your thoughts on Saturday's weather. Quite the contrast between E.C. sunny & 29 forecast (yes I understand it is automated) after just watching John Wheeler on WDAZ whose forecast resembles the NWS one calling for cloudy with showers. I realize weather can differ from Grand Forks to here but the forecasts differ massively. Thanks
ReplyDeleteGreen Party worried about deep cuts at Environment Canada
ReplyDeleteCJOB News Team reporting
8/4/2011
The Green Party of Canada has learned of deep cuts at Environment Canada, with nearly 800 people being let go including over 200 scientists, chemists, meteorologists, and engineers..
Party leader Elizabeth May says it leads to questions of how Environment Canada can fulfil its mandate with such a loss in personnel. She adds the Harper government owes the public clear explanations of how the core activity of Environment Canada will not be harmed.
The mandate of Environment Canada is to protect and conserve Canada’s natural environment and renewable resources and also includes weather-related research and forecasting. The department is also tasked with enforcing environmental policies and regulations around water and biodiversity.
I'm truly not surprised that the Conservative government will be cutting back EC staff to a skeleton crew. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it the conservatives in the 80's that cut back funding to accuweather to the point that they had to leave Canada? Or was that the liberals?
ReplyDeleteEither way its getting tight for money everywhere. I work in the research field and there have been astronomical cuts to grant funded agencies, putting alot of researchers out of work.
On topic.....I am a little disappointed by tomorrows revised forecast. I know we need some rain but yesterday's forecast for Saturday prompted me to buy 3 yards of dirt and I had Saturday booked to do some serious yard work. Guess I'll tarp the soil and get to work on Sunday.
Still looks to me like Saturday will be just a slight chance of showers, with the bulk of the precip. moving along the Int'l border with the thunderstorms remaining mostly in the States. It may be a bit cloudier (which would be beautiful for working outside), but I don't see it getting all that wet.
ReplyDeleteMonday looks niiiiiiiice though :)
Agree with B7.. bulk of showers/thunderstorms should be grazing intl border Saturday with heaviest rain along and south of border.. at least according to the model concensus. NAM was furthest north on precip yesterday, but this morning they've also trended a bit further south.
ReplyDeleteAgain.. sorry for the lack of responses and entries.. just too busy enjoying this summer!
It's all good Rob!
ReplyDeleteWe appreciate the effort you put into running this webpage for all these years with the little spare time I'm sure you have~!!!
Accuweather was funded by the feds?! Why?
ReplyDeleteSorry I have no idea. I was wondering why is environment canada mentioning a 60% chance of showers or thunderstorms tomorrow? I'm confused.No severe weather threat was forecast or was there?
ReplyDeleteHi Rob I have a rather broad question. Looking at Kenoras weather records and comparing them to Winnipegs, being just 200km east of Winnipeg they sure get a lot more rain then we do with some years as much as 400-500mm more than Winnipeg! Thats almost double our average yearly amount just 200km away! And its happened a lot in the last 10 years. Going west there wouldn't be any place with such a contrast on a regular basis till Vancouver which is like 2000km away. Why does Kenora get so much more than we do? What big difference weather wise takes place just 200km east of here? I've always wanted to know that since it happens all the time.
ReplyDeleteIt gets more humid on a regular basis as you go east...
ReplyDeleteWinnipeg: avg 415 mm of rain per year
Kenora: avg 514 mm of rain per year
Toronto: avg 685 mm of rain per year
Montreal: avg 764 mm of rain per year
We get bigger storms in Southern Ontario/Southern Quebec.
Talk about a drought pattern.. once again an omega block is setting up over the eastern Prairies. Like often happens, shortwave energy moving across the northern plains undercuts the upper ridge and sets up an impressive moisture gradient right along the intl border. Best instability and moisture transport remain south of the border while all larger, synoptic systems or cold lows have been deflected well off to our NW. The resulting sharp gradient in soil moisture between the prairies and northern plains is likely feeding back and stabilizing the pattern.
ReplyDeleteWe need really need that omega block to shift away/ break down. If the blocking structure would retrograde west, then we could start tapping shortwaves coming around the base of the hudson bay vortex. Or, as we enter into late summer/fall, if that signature could shift over Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes we would get a SW flow steering the US systems in our direction.
Our window for heavy precipitation events that can make a big impact on our moisture deficit typically closes rapidly in September (with best moisture shifting south and most of the big colorado lows tracking off to our SE in the fall).
You can read this while waiting for the correct answer
ReplyDeleteSome guesses for Kenora
1. Winnipeg is Lowest point East of The Rockies in the center of the canada To the East (and West)Everything is uphill almost to Lake superior .. and the prevailing winds are west. e.g.More rain on the uphill West side of the Cdn mtn ranges.
2. Large shallow warm inland seas. Lakes Winnipeg/Mb/osis.See prevailing winds
Toronto is surrounded by enormous lakes (Erie,Ontario,Huron/Georgian Bay and Simcoe which are in the Lee of James Bay and north of New York NY on the East Coast. (Hurricane Hazel anyone?)
Pick a prevailing wind??
Perhaps its the Buffalo to London snow belt just west of Toronto. Its rumored the heat from the Hamilton Steel mills raises the temp high enough to bring it down as rain in the winter for TO and Hamilton.
Perhaps its the mist from Niagara Falls which changes the Niagara Gorge and river downstream into a semi tropical climate more typical of southern US Its only 40Km across Lake Ontario from Toronto to the mouth of the Niagara.
Past few years were consistantly wet, and now we're consistantly dry. We just can't seem to get a balance of both anymore.
ReplyDeleteAdam..
ReplyDeleteAs shown in the previous post, Kenora does get more rain on average than Winnipeg. Overall they have a slightly more humid climate than we do, which can translate into heavier rainfall especially during the convective summer months. They've also had some very heavy rain events over the past 10 years.. with 100-130 mm rainfall events from thunderstorm complexes that have tracked to our southeast. Perhaps that's in response to a low level jet over Minnesota that can tap more abundant moisture from the Mississippi Valley/Gulf of Mexico to generate more excessive rainfall over NW Ontario than areas west. Whether this is a long term climate trend or just a short term aberration.. I don't know.
@Adam,
ReplyDeleteI'm not originally from here, but I moved to Winnipeg from Edmonton about 3.5 years ago now, and I've been amazed at the sharp contrast between here and areas east/southeast of here. By in large, the main storm track runs somewhere along Fargo to Kenora and then eastwards.
Through the winter you can especially see the difference, when often Winnipeg will get no snow, Emerson will get 15-25cm, and Grand Forks and N. Minnesota get feet of the stuff. All the while it's -25°C with a horrible north wind in Winnipeg and above zero and raining in Minneapolis.
Minnesota also gets into the humid air masses much earlier than we do and stay in it much longer. I swear that somewhere between Fargo and Minneapolis there is a line you could draw denoting the climate boundary.
It certainly is an interesting feature, that's for sure! I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the additional precipitation areas east of us get is in winter, though, as save for the end of fall/beginning of spring, Winnipeg is actually quite dry, with most of our snow falling in only a few snowfalls through the winter, with annoying skiffs of snow the rest of the time.
@Adam,
ReplyDeleteYou'll also see us talking about how things will skim the Int'l border and head through Sprague quite often during the summer. It is absolutely astonishing how significant a feature that 49th parallel is, with 3-4" of rain in heavy thunderstorms not overly uncommon, as well as severe hail and tornadoes that never seem to want to move onto our side of the border (which is good, I guess?).
It seems to take a lot of southerly winds pushing to get the storm track as far north as Winnipeg in the summertime. Or maybe a good northerly push to bring the other storm track this far south...
Well, Seems to me the storm systems that form in montana or idaho always stay south of the border and moves east like it's sneaking by us, then when we get a low form on our side of the border it ends up hitting us like it does to them in the states, but as always we end up taking a miss if the conditions aren't there. It's like a seperate carrying path. Something to do with upper level winds. But we Can get our fair share of severe weather here in the peg. Just like winning the lottery. Don't worry our time will come, if this keeps on happening I will get more and more jealous.
ReplyDeleteYeah the storm track seems to always track along or south of the border and then swing up towards Kenora. This happend on Thursday when those storms were moving along the border and then swung to move in a NE direction right towards kenora. Nobody has ever mentioned this was an "official" storm track but it sure seems like it is. Kinda sucks that it seems like Winnipeg will always be in a position to always get just missed with storms so close yet so far, which is the running joke around here that we have some shield that surrounds the city. If you love storms like me this gets really annoying on a yearly basis :)
ReplyDelete