Long range guidance is beginning to show signs of a pattern change to colder weather over southern MB by Wednesday of next week. After another surge of mild Pacific air with above freezing temperatures over southern MB on Monday, a large Arctic airmass will begin to flood into the northwest Prairies by Tuesday. This colder airmass will spread into southern MB by Wednesday in the wake of a low pressure system crossing the International border Tuesday that will bring some snow to southern MB.. possibly 2-5 cm. After Wednesday, long range guidance is suggesting a spell of below normal temperatures over southern MB through next weekend into the third week of January, which would mean daily highs of -15C or colder, and lows of -25C or lower. How long this cold spell will last is not known. The AO index remains positive, which suggests that the spell of cold weather may not last long.. and there is considerable uncertainty in the 2 week forecast. But colder weather appears to be on the way for a little while.. which will be good news for people looking for more typical January weather to finally arrive in southern MB.
Friday, January 06, 2012
Pattern change to colder weather by middle of next week..
Long range guidance is beginning to show signs of a pattern change to colder weather over southern MB by Wednesday of next week. After another surge of mild Pacific air with above freezing temperatures over southern MB on Monday, a large Arctic airmass will begin to flood into the northwest Prairies by Tuesday. This colder airmass will spread into southern MB by Wednesday in the wake of a low pressure system crossing the International border Tuesday that will bring some snow to southern MB.. possibly 2-5 cm. After Wednesday, long range guidance is suggesting a spell of below normal temperatures over southern MB through next weekend into the third week of January, which would mean daily highs of -15C or colder, and lows of -25C or lower. How long this cold spell will last is not known. The AO index remains positive, which suggests that the spell of cold weather may not last long.. and there is considerable uncertainty in the 2 week forecast. But colder weather appears to be on the way for a little while.. which will be good news for people looking for more typical January weather to finally arrive in southern MB.
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Good post from Jeff Masters on the incredibly mild and dry start to winter this year.. Click on my name for link.
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to the cooler temperatures, it brings us a bit of a challenge. Keep up with the updates rob!
ReplyDeleteSeasonal snow update through Jan 5th: (Charleswood snow stats)
ReplyDeleteJAN snow: 4.6 cm
DEC snow: 5.2 cm
NOV snow: 22.0 cm
TOTAL snow so far: 31.8 cm
NORMAL to Jan 5th: 50 cm
LAST YEAR to Jan 5th: 73 cm
YWG airport came very close to setting another record high yesterday. The official high temperature was +4.3C recorded just after midnight, just shy of the +4.4C record for Jan 6th set in 1949.
ReplyDeleteHey rob, Where do you get the record temperature data from?
ReplyDeleteAnd also
do you occasionally check out my blog? cause I am looking for more people to comment on my posts. Feel free to come by and take a look!
Mike..
ReplyDeleteRecord temps for Winnipeg are listed on my "stats page" under "STATS" on the drop down menu. The daily records appear on the top line of the stats page, listed by month.
Lots of cold air settling in over Alaska right now.. large dome of minus 40s over west central Alaska. Huslia AK (PAHL) had a high of -45C today after a low of -48C!
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, on the Alaska coastline, some communities are just getting buried in snow. Valdez, AK has picked up 45" of snow over the past 3 days (over 110 cm) after getting over 150" (375 cm) in December alone. Their current snowpack depth is 6 feet (180 cm) and they're getting another foot of snow tonight!
Has that Alaska cold been there for the last 3 weeks?
ReplyDeleteLooks like the cold snap started around Xmas up there. Looking at Fairbanks stats, they were quite mild through the first 3 weeks of December, then temps went below normal by Xmas.. They've been well below normal since the last week of December. So far in January, they're averaging about 12C below normal, with average lows around -40C.
ReplyDeleteToday will mark our 30th consecutive day above normal (defined by the mean daily temperature) We have been above normal every day since Dec 10th. Since Nov 21st, we have had only 4 days that were below normal (a span of 48 days). I think we're due for some cold weather.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a few more records will be broken across southern Manitoba tomorrow. This winter is starting to sound like a broken record.
ReplyDelete30th day in a row above normal!!! WOW!
ReplyDeleteRob if someone told you back in the late summer, that this fall and winter were gonna start like this, would you have believed them????
With La Nina returning and a long spell of above normal weather over the summer and fall, I would have thought we were due for some colder weather this winter, especially by January. The strongly positive AO that developed in late November really threw the winter predictions for a loop. Just goes to show the limit of predictability with seasonal forecasting.. there are factors that will influence the outcome that are not known even a couple weeks ahead of time. But it's all a learning experience.. and hopefully these events give us more insight to make better predictions in the future.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the AO has really shown some extreme variations in the past 6 years.. going from strongly positive some winters to strongly negative (like last winter). Sure makes you wonder if the melting ice cap is influencing the strength of the AO each year, which in turn is having significant impacts on our winters.
Does that mean that the Artic in a sense is repairing itself. If it keeps all the Artic air bottled up in the Artic would that mean that sea ice would start returning?
ReplyDeletePerhaps these have some influence on large swings in the AO (or not)
ReplyDeleteMy name or Vast Artic Methane Plumes
or
http://www.google.ca/search?q=Russia+Methane&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
How far west of Alaska are those?
ReplyDeleteThis shows how close to Alaska the Siberian Artic shelf is
ReplyDeleteSiberian Ice Shelf Map (UK Independent)
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ReplyDeleteJim..... I agree with you, the methane gas being released in the arctic, and the positive AO is to blame for all the warm weather this year. I just hope that it doesn't greatly alter our temperatures into february.
ReplyDeleteDot Earth Andrew Revkins NYT Blog has several opinions on it with some suggesting that past methane peaks have reflected rather than led Arctic (Greenland) Warming... that it has been a slow rather than rapid process and that the process itself causes an increase in the rate of polar ice melt among other opinions..
ReplyDeleteMy name or
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/
There seems to be a healthy Blog debate see Jan 4 and Dec 28th Dot Earth entries.. None suggest February's AO will be effected...I wonder if recent years wild annual AO fluctuations are part of it
ReplyDeleteToday's record high for Winnipeg is 5.6C set in 1958. With our snowcover, I don't think we'll be able to break it.. but other places in southern MB will break records today.. especially off to our southwest where there is little or no snowcover. Note that the snowfree Portage-Carman-Morden-Emerson swath is already at +4C as of 11am.
ReplyDeleteEven Winnipeg is fairing not to bad at 1 C already!!
ReplyDelete