Sunday, October 23, 2011

Seasonable weather this week

Generally dry and seasonable weather is expected over southern Manitoba over the next few days as a zonal flow predominates over the central continent. Today will be a beautiful fall day over the Red River valley with sunny skies and temperatures of 10-13C (warmest in the south) although some cloud is spreading over the northern valley through the Interlake regions (towards Gimli and Grand Beach). A system passing through the Dakotas is forecast to spread cloud and some precipitation mainly south of the border Monday night into Tuesday. A ridge of high pressure will follow in the wake of that system bringing generally dry and seasonable weather for the remainder of the week.

41 comments:

  1. I see Portage La Prairie had some "fog depositing ice" this morning. With ground temperatures so warm I assume that the ice fog has no effect on icing the roads???

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  2. "fog depositing ice" is Weatheroffice's translation of "freezing fog". Personally, I don't know why they use that term.. it's very misleading. I much prefer the term "freezing fog" which is just fog occurring at below freezing temperatures which may or may not be causing icing issues. At this time of year, the ground is still too warm to result in the deposition of ice on roads, except perhaps on bridges if the fog is thick enough.

    Note that "freezing fog" is different than "ice fog". Ice fog is generally used for fog that forms in very cold airmasses (temp < -30C) when water vapour and exhaust from settlements can result in foggy conditions during clear and calm weather, usually around sunrise.

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  3. Rob..Could the PLP Ice Fog reference have anything to do with the Potato plant immediately south of Hwy 1 and bordering the Portage Diversion and the bridge which crosses the Hwy next to the plant?

    Workers from PLP make a left turn across oncoming traffic just west of the bridge and the plant is known to expel a lot of water/vapor.

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  4. Jim..

    The freezing fog report that morning was from the PLP airport due to a fog bank that was drifting in from the Carberry/southern Lake Manitoba area. The potato plant may have contributed some local water vapour, but in this particular case, the fog was a little more extensive than from a local point source.

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  5. Will EC issue specialized warnings such as they do for the Sugar Plants on I 29 on the way to Grand Forks?
    That bridge over the Diversion and the two bridges in the next km are very susceptible to icing. I believe a collision at (into) the bridge last year resulted in closing of the west to east hwy lanes around Portage La Prairie.
    Ironic that Carberry is the other major Potato plant

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. This is off topic but I just had a simple question. What is the provincial precipitation record for 1 year in Manitoba for the highest annual amount of precip in 1 year?

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  8. Rob!
    How is the weather looking for the bomber game?? Rain showers??? How strong are the winds looking??

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  9. I always find it funny how places like Denver can go from 26 C on Monday to 6 inches of snow 2 days later....

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  10. Pea sized hail for about 2 minutes in Charleswood. Nice looking cell over the city.

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  11. The month that just keeps on giving.

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  12. Thunder shower,SE Wpg Again!?

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  13. So what was that today???
    Ice pellets?
    Sleet?
    Hail??? ( Rob's place)
    snow????

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  14. Look for some patchy thick fog tonight with all this moisture around, and light winds.

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  15. Winnipeg airport at 5:00 am is reporting 0 km visibility in fog!!
    0 km !!!!

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  16. Those web cams on the
    RobsObs Live Winnipeg WebCams site give a comprehensive view of total city fog.

    http://members.shaw.ca/wpgwx/robsobs/ywgcams.htm

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  17. CYWG METARs

    1500Z 1/4SM R13/1200V2600FT/U R36/1600V2400FT/U

    SPECI 1452Z 1/4SM R13/1200V2000FT/U R36/1200V2400FT/U

    1400Z 17004KT 1/8SM R13/1200V1800FT/D R36/1600FT/N

    SPECI 1309Z CCA 00000KT 1/8SM R13/0700V1000FT/N R36/0700V1100FT/N

    1300Z 00000KT 0SM R13/0700FT/N R36/0700V1000FT/N

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  18. I wonder if they were landing any planes this morning when the visibility was 0 km for a few hours??? I get nervous on a plane on a good day, never mind landing in soupy fog.

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  19. Looks like that little bit of rain last night combined with sub-freezing temps this morning has caused very icy conditions on area roads this morning, especially on bridges and overpasses. Numerous crashes being reported with some bridge closures. Take extra care out there this morning.

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  20. Sounds like the east coast is gonna get a good snowstorm this weekend. There are a fair number of storms running across the country so it's gonna happen soon for us to get our first snow.

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  21. Hi Rob!
    I was looking at some of the record overnight lows for Winnipeg and noticed that they are into the -15 to- 18 C range!!
    I would assume that there has to be a snowpack present to get temps that cold this time of the year??!!!
    Or could you get overnight lows near -20 with no snowcover this time of the year??

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  22. Daniel, my guess is that if it ever gets cold enough to get into the -18 C range, there will inevitably be snow as well, given the moisture still present in the air. I guess it's a chicken and egg situation. Then the snow makes it even colder due to radiational cooling.

    I have an unheated greenhouse and the effect of snow cover outside is pretty dramatic. When there's no snow, and we get a low of -10 C, my greenhouse stays at about -2 C. When there's snow and it gets to -20 C, my greenhouse bottoms out at only -5 C: a much bigger difference because the soil in the greenhouse is bare and moderating the air temp. a good deal.

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  23. daniel..

    As Andrew illustrates quite well, yes, to get temperatures that low at this time of year you would need some snow cover. The coldest October lows for Winnipeg before some snowcover are around -12C or so.

    By the way, sorry for the lack of replies and posts lately.. I've been a little under the weather the past couple of days.

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  24. Thanks for the explanation!!

    Get well soon, Rob!!

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  25. An example of that occurred in October 1936 . Similar summer to this year hot (33 days >30C)very little precipitation. From Oct 21 to 26 five out of 6 days of snow. Result -20.6 on the 26th .

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  26. HOPE you get well soon Rob, it's prime time in the flu season!

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  27. Quite the snowstorm now in area's of the eastern U.S
    I always have to give credit to the forecasters who forecast something like this, when things could easily go bust with a rise of temps by a degree or two.

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  28. Fire Tornado near Langdon ND on Monday ( Images and explanation on NWS Grand Forks )
    on my name or
    http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fgf/?n=langdon_fire_tornado

    Was this similar to the fatal Elie straw bale fire about 7-8 years ago?

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  29. Some Light showers are making an appearance in the city, some well needed rain since our last big thunderstorm event on october 22. I'm Glad that EC is re-issuing the forecasts according to local weather conditions, as they mentioned cloudy weather overnight earlier today.

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  30. Wow.. what a historic October snowstorm for the NE US. 1-2 feet of snow over portions of interior New England with 30" (75 cm) reported in western CT. Over 2 million without power.. including over 800K in CT alone, the state's worst ever power outage, worse than Hurricane Irene in August. Puts these early season snowstorms in perspective..

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  31. Now could we get some snow next weekend??? Well there is a storm on the models in the Denver area heading into Minneasota. Throughout the week it will interesting to see how this one trends.

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  32. Ya Rob.I posted a pic of that GFS model run on your facebook page.It shows a huge storm winding up in Minneasota with plenty of cold air spilling in behind it. An all out blizzard it that were to happen.

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  33. Robs Obs has its own Facebook page? Can someone post a link?

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  34. 1-2 feet of snow in New England!!!
    The only thing is that it will be all gone in a few days.

    If we got that much snow now it would be here until June of the next year....LOL

    Yes Rob justed started another facebook page for just weather talk other than putting it on his own personal facebook page.

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  35. Anonymous..

    Yes, as Daniel noted, I started a Rob's Obs Facebook page recently.. mainly since it's the social network of choice right now to keep people connected. I prefer the format of my Rob's Obs blog (especially the archive capabilities), but will post now and then to my Facebook page when I can. Click on my name for link..

    Increasingly it becomes difficult to try to stay on top of all the various social forums available now.. I prefer to stick with one format if possible. But then, maybe I'm old school :)

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  36. I am working some mid shifts...but trend of the models in next weekend storm is a bit farther west with upper low and best snow potential I think ending up from central SD in toward Devils Lake-Langdon then to maybe Winnipeg area. Not a blockbuster storm like the northeast....but still the first one of the season.

    I would like to see some snow hit central Canada more to get a covering so we can start to get colder air down south.

    Even though I have been living in the northern Plains for over 10 years now...I still get excited over a snow just as if I was when I was a kid back in the southern U.S.

    Rob--what is the FB page name I tried Robs Obs but it came up with something odd.

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  37. Rob -- nevermind I found correct FB page..

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  38. Almost all models have shifted sligtly west and would give us a fair chance of accumlating snow. Still a few days away before I jump on the storm bandwagon.

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  39. Models still fairly consistent on idea of Colorado low ejecting into northern plains for the weekend.. As Dan noted, trend has been slower and further west which puts snow threat mainly over wrn RRV/SW MB.. but still way too early to pinpoint. Our first storm of the season to watch though. Will have a new post on the potential storm this morning.

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  40. Nice write up on the historic October NE snowstorm.. http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1978

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