Sunday, October 07, 2012

More rain on the way.. with some snow possible Monday night

GEM precip type forecast for
Monday evening Oct 8 2012.
Green is rain, blue is snow,
yellow is wet snow/rain
A clipper system over northern Saskatchewan will track southeastward into southern MB overnight and Monday bringing another round of much needed precipitation over the region. Rain from this system will spread into western MB this evening and into the RRV overnight, continuing though Thanksgiving Monday. Rain will change over to snow over higher elevations of western MB Monday with some accumulations likely over the Duck and Riding Mountains. Rainfall amounts of 10 to 20 mm will be possible through much of southern MB, especially from western MB highlands into the RRV, including Winnipeg. By Monday night, colder air wrapping in behind the system will change rain over to wet snow even over the RRV, with a coating of wet snow possible by Tuesday morning. Below normal temperatures in the single digits will persist through the week, before some moderation by next week.     

28 comments:

  1. Rob any chance you'll be able to sum up this month the same way you did Oct 2005.
    The mild and dry conditions that prevailed in September continued through much of October, giving residents of Southern Manitoba an extended stretch of pleasant fall weather. Temperatures for the month averaged almost 2 degrees above normal,with highs generally in the teens and lows above freezing. In fact, there were only 5 days below freezing during the month, with an extreme minimum of -2.5C. Normally, there are at least 16 days of frost during October in Winnipeg. Temperatures were above normal almost every day.. especially after the 7th. The only cold weather was between the 4th and 7th when an unseasonably early winter storm on the 5th-6th brought strong winds and snow to much of southern Manitoba with up to 45 cm of snow near Pilot Mound. The snow was short lived however and the weather turned mild and dry for the remainder of the month. Precipitation for the month totalled 36 mm.. near normal for October. However, the bulk of the precipitation fell during the October 5-6th storm with only
    3 other days during the month having 2 mm or more.

    All in all.. another pleasant fall month in Southern Manitoba

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wish I could :) Looks like we're stuck in a below normal pattern for awhile.. at least another week before we get back to more normal October weather. After that, I'm hoping that we can rebound back to above normal again for a few weeks, much like we've done for the past year and a half. I still have hope we may see 20C again before Halloween.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Might be one of the consequences of the record low sea ice but... Yellowknife still has not froze this fall.

    Other Canadian cities that have yet to freeze are: Vancouver, Victoria, Osoyoos, Windsor, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton, St John's.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It can get warm again as long as it doesn't stay dry. Problem is this time of year if its warm, it's usually dry.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Precip readings from YWG airport AWOS continues to be very questionable. Yesterday, it recorded a phantom reading of 0.5 mm under sunny skies. Today with rain all morning, it again recorded 0.5 mm up to 1 pm, while the colocated YWG climate gauge recorded 2.7 mm. I recorded almost 5 mm at my place, and most other Winnipeg stations (via Wunderground and Weatherbug) were all very consistent in that 2-5 mm range. The precip gauge at YWG is scheduled to be changed to NavCanada equipment by next year, and hopefully will give more accurate readings than the current YWG AWOS is giving.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Why isn't this 'colocated YWG gauge' not the official one? Is it far away from the airport?

    ReplyDelete
  7. The colocated site is exactly that.. colocated in the same spot as the YWG AWOS site. It's just a different type of auto-station, and only registers basic weather info like pressure, temp, dewpoint, wind, precip amount. It doesn't measure clouds, visibility or precip type like the YWG AWOS does, which is why the AWOS site is used as the official weather observation for Winnipeg. However, the colocated site, known as Winnipeg "A" CS (climate station, id= XWG) is considered an official site for EC observations and climate data, and data can be accessed under EC's climate data website (look for Winnipeg "A' CS site under "nearby stations with data", or click on my name for direct link)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Rainfall totals up to 7 pm..

    YWG AWOS .......... 1.5 mm
    XWG CS ............ 3.5 mm
    XWN (Forks) ....... 3.0 mm
    Rob's Obs ......... 5.2 mm
    McPhillips site ... 4.6 mm (CWB)
    Rte 90/Perimeter ... 5.3 mm (CWB)
    Headingley ......... 4.8 mm (CWB)
    Tuxedo School ...... 5.3 mm (CWB)

    As you can see from these readings, the YWG AWOS site had a notable dry bias with today's rain event, and it wasn't a factor of winds which were light today.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Rain starting to mix with or change to wet snow over Dauphin/Yorkton areas this evening. Guidance indicating rain changing to wet snow overnight in Winnipeg, but not much in the way of accumulation with most of it melting as it hits the ground, possibly a slight coating on grassy surfaces and rooftops by morning.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hey Rob, just decided to drop by and say hello and wish you a great belated thanksgiving.

    Also the warm up you mentioned next week isn't really being projected on the weather model (GFS) as a significant warmup with temperatures of only 10 to 15C. Is there any possibility that it could change and turn out being temperatures of 20+C? How warm do you think it will get next week with your current predictions?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Mike.. Looks like we get into a more zonal pattern next week, which will get us closer to normal temps.. in the 10-15C range. At this point, I don't see any signs of 20C weather returning in the near future.. but I remain hopeful that we'll see 15-20C temps again before month's end.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Rain starting to change to wet snow in Winnipeg..

    ReplyDelete
  13. About 1.2 cm in south St Vital overnight. Just started snowing again, so maybe a little bit more this morning.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Just had very heavy snow pellets and snow in south end. Didn't last very long with about 0.5 cm accumulation. Would've been more if there wasn't melting.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Same here in Charleswood..

    ReplyDelete
  16. We'll our 15 consecutive months of above normal temperatures will end this month that's for sure, but you could've seen the signs of that happening in September already with some of those cooler days we saw during the middle portion of the month between September 18-25.
    And now with the idea of El nino this winter gone, and the well below normal weather we are seeing now, kinda makes it hard to believe the idea of a repeat winter to last year or any kind of warmer winter.

    Rob, do you see this winter being anything like last winter or somewhat warmer than normal?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Interesting to look at the city webcams today and seeing some parts of the city in sunshine while others are getting blasted with snow pellets. That kind of day today... convectively unstable.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous.. Without a strong El NiƱo in place, all bets are off as to what kind of winter we'll have. I still think we'll have a delayed start to the season given the record low Arctic sea ice this year, and the general trend of the past decade for later starts to our winters. But without a strong climatic signal to go on, it's basically a coin flip as to what this winter will be like. My gut feeling is that we're going to have a more typical winter once it starts, which would mean colder and snowier than last winter. But again, as I often stress, seasonal forecasts are terribly difficult to get right.. even for people with a lot more expertise than me in that area.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Very disappointing to see the erroneous precipitation readings from the airport. One wonders how far back the current gauge has been used. Again, we see the advantage of a dense mesonet of other stations in red-flagging the data coming from YWG.

    Back in 2000, and again in 2011, a rehabilitated time-series of precipitation records were published for selected Canadian stations. They corrected for gauge bias, under-catch from wind etc. Presumably YWG is one of the locations where corrected data was developed for at least one of those studies. Would be interesting to compare the corrected data with the raw values - and for recent years - with surrounding stations. Perhaps the correction algorithm needs to be more aggressive w.r.t. to YWG.

    Daniel

    ReplyDelete
  20. Daniel.. This only highlights the importance of QA and QC of climate data before it's archived, to maintain the integrity of long standing climate records. Hopefully, the QC issue is addressed sooner rather than later..

    By the way, YWG ended up with a rainfall amount Monday that was pretty consistent with XWG and XWN (around 12 mm). Oddly though, YWG was under-reporting amounts until 10 pm, when suddenly it recorded 8 mm in one hour to "catch up" to the other readings. It's almost as if there was an obstruction in YWG's gauge that suddenly cleared after 10 pm.

    ReplyDelete
  21. It doesn't rain all summer and now it's like it doesn't want to quit. Supposed to rain again this afternoon.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Daryl.. We shouldn't see much here in Winnipeg. Main area of showers will be passing to the southwest of us, with perhaps some scattered sprinkles over Winnipeg this afternoon. Besides, we can use the moisture.. We're still running a rainfall deficit of over 100 mm since June, so every little bit helps at this point. I know my lawn is looking a lot better than a couple weeks ago!

    ReplyDelete
  23. I know we need the moisture but it takes a long time now for the ground to dry especially with the lack of heat.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Note that my weather station is not reporting wind speed currently, it's been u/a for a couple days now. I'll need to check the cables and sensor, but it will likely not be reporting for awhile.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Rob Which Obs Data of the Max October wind speed for Oct 2 is accurate The Obs Monthly Summary (79) or the Obs Annual Summary (61)??

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anonymous.. My weather station software (VWS) displays wind speeds that are adjusted upward by 30% to compensate for the lack of good exposure at my location. The monthly summary displays the 30% adjusted wind speed values, but the annual summary displays the raw unadjusted value. In this case, the unadjusted peak wind was 61 kmh, but the adjusted peak value was 79 kmh (61 + 30%)

    The 30% adjusted wind speed values are only displayed on my website for the real time wind speeds, and the current monthly summary. All my archived data (both monthly and annual) reverts back to unadjusted wind speed values for a true indication of what my weather station actually measured. Hope that makes sense..

    ReplyDelete
  27. I have read so many articles or reviews concerning the blogger lovers except this piece of writing is actually a good piece of writing, keep it up.
    Feel free to surf my weblog - Kohls Printable Coupons In Store

    ReplyDelete