Thursday, December 20, 2012

Quiet weather pattern to persist through Christmas holidays..

Generally quiet weather is expected over southern Manitoba over the next few days and through the Christmas holidays with no major storms forecast over the next little while.  Stubborn clouds and occasional light snow has persisted for the past few days, and will linger into Friday before some breaks appear over the weekend into early next week. Occasional light snow is possible at times, especially by Christmas Eve, but significant snow accumulations are not expected. Temperatures will be seasonably cold with highs in the minus teens, and lows in the minus 20s if skies clear. This will be good news for holiday travellers, with no major problems expected for highway or air travel heading into Christmas. 

24 comments:

  1. Thanks Rob. Merry Christmas

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  2. Rob, or anybody who may know: Any idea as to which is the official station for snowfall measurements for Regina?
    I heard they had their snowiest November, but I see that neither the airport or 'RCS' even measure snow anymore... (The EC historical data is very complicated to use for average folk; data comes from all kinds of stations, god knows which is considered official)

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  3. How are we doing in terms of snow fall so far this winter? Are we avg or higher than avg so far?

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  4. There are 4 volunteer climate stations in Regina that report snowfall to EC, and they are entered officially into the climate archives (When you look at Regina RCS site in the climate archive, click on "nearby stations with data" to see the other climate sites) So technically, those are considered "official" snowfall obs for Regina. However as you note, which one do you take as as the official site? A quick scan of the 4 sites in November shows snowfall totals ranging from 56 cm to 72.5 cm. In addition, there is no quality control done on the data, so values can be suspect and unreliable depending on the observer. Plus, snowfall obs are not from the airport site, so one has to question the validity of comparing past airport snowfall data with volunteer measurements inside the city where exposure and observing methods may be different. The snowiest November at YQR airport was 1941 at 54 cm. It's quite possible that snowfall this November may have been less than 54 cm if observations were taken at the airport.. in which case it would not have been a record. But we'll never know.

    Bottom line is that there is no longer a dedicated snowfall observing program at YQR (Regina airport), or Saskatoon YXE, or Winnipeg YWG for that matter. These are sites that have been recording snowfall data consistently since the 1930s, with supplementary data back to the 1800s. Now as of 2005 or so, that data consistency from your major observing site is gone. How do you properly assess snowfall trends, records and averages when you no longer take the data at those long standing sites? It's a real sore point for me.. especially since official snowfall data is still taken at most other major airport sites in Canada, including Vancouver and Victoria. Not equal treatment in my opinion.

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  5. Anonymous.. As of today at my site, snowfall for December is 28.8 cm, and 72 cm for the season. If you use Winnipeg airport averages (which may not be representative for my site as per post above) then we are above normal for snowfall. Normal December snowfall at YWG airport is about 20 cm, and on average, we have about 40 cm of total snow by Dec 20th.

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  6. I don't think I can count how many days I have seen the weather forecast saying "Light snow ending this morning" then "Light snow ending this afternoon" then "Light snow ending this evening" and of course "Light snow ending overnight" just to keep seeing it snow. Starting to feel like groundhog day.

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  7. Thanks Rob, have a very merry Christmas

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  8. Myself, I kind of enjoy the fluffy flurries and persistent cloud cover. Helps me get into the holiday spirit. Anything is better than blistering cold and when things clear out during a Manitoba winter, the chances for blistering cold are pretty good.

    On the other hand, I don't mind the odd bit of sunshine just to keep the vitamin D levels up.

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  9. Sunshine! Nice to finally see you again! :)

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  10. Interesting. The public forecast has sunshine through next week. Yet the determinstic models and ensembles still show at least mixed cloud, if not more.

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  11. Daryl, ... it's called aftercasting and EC is very good at it.

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  12. In defense of EC, forecasting evolution and dissipation of low cloud and boundary layer flurries is very difficult. Even nowcasting techniques will only give you limited forecast skill, especially when flurries are almost invisible on radar. And this past week was unusual in the persistence of the low cloud.. so I could see why it was a challenge to forecast accurately.

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  13. Oh wow did today end up being another one of those days?

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  14. I don't think so. Yesterday's 11 am forecast showed 9/10's of cloud for right now and an 80% chance of precip, then clearing up by mid-afternoon to 2/10's of cloud. So far, so good.

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  15. Oh, I see. It's not forecast to clear anymore. Yup, another one of those days.

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  16. Oh sorry I meant another day of 'boundary layer flurries stuff'? Wasn't talking about the forecast.

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  17. Wow...quite cold today. Gonna be a cold Christmas in 2012. Looks like the cold will stay with us at least through next weekend.. Some hints of moderation in temps around New Year's Eve....Let's hope so. For now -29C expected tonight. Yikes!!!

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