Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Cold start to the day.. temperatures moderating this week

It's a cold start to the day this morning across the Red River valley with early morning temperatures near or below the minus 30C mark. Winnipeg airport was sitting at -28C at 5 am while the coldest reading of -34C was found in Pinawa. Luckily, winds are light this morning so wind chills are not significant. Temperatures will rise into the mid minus teens today under partly sunny skies, with more moderate temperatures near minus 10C for Thursday and Friday.  The good news is that temperatures will continue to climb over the weekend into next week with temperatures near or slightly above the normal high of -7C for this time of year.  In addition, conditions look fairly dry over the next few days, with no major systems affecting southern Manitoba with strong winds or significant precipitation. So we'll have to put up with one more day of cold weather today... then things are looking up! 

11 comments:

  1. Rob EC is forecasting 10-20cm for March 4&5.. any idea if that may materialize?

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  2. Anonymous.. Not sure where you got that info from? EC (Env Canada) wouldn't be giving out snowfall projections that far out. In fact, it's beyond the timeframe of most medium range models, so I can't even speculate on the potential at this point.

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  3. Sure a boring weather pattern we're in right now! Not much to look at in the models right now..

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  4. I'll take boring right now. Nice change of pace.

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  5. At least it's boring and mild, as opposed to boring and cold. I can handle that for awhile..

    For action, you'll have to look down south.. another snowstorm across the central plains tonight into Monday, with severe thunderstorms possible over the Gulf Coast..

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  6. Rob, I know long range is not your expertise, but if you had to take a quick look at the latest trends and make quick guess, would you say that March would favor a below normal, normal or above normal pattern in terms of temps?

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  7. Given the extent of snow cover over the Prairies, my gut feeling is that we'll likely stay below normal in March.. with a slow transition into spring. But there's just no way of saying for sure that we can't switch to an above normal pattern in March at some point, as it's happened in other years with deep snow cover.

    FWIW, NOAA is forecasting a better than even chance of below normal temperatures over western Canada in March, and warmer than normal over the Southeast US. That pattern would favour generally below normal temperatures over us.

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  8. Yeah, i've been thinking the same thing for March. I think we are gonna have to wait longer for true Spring to arrive this year. In fact, i've had that feeling right from the start of winter.

    Rob, this is more than likely tougher to say, but what are the latest trends as far as precip is concerned for March, does the pattern favor more storminess for us as in wetter than normal?

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  9. Rob how much snow are we at for the year now?

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  10. Hey Rob, I am wondering is it possible if our weather could start resembling the precipitation conditions experienced in 2010? Considering our dense snowpack this year and forecast flooding in Fargo. Could it contribute to above normal precipitation here?

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  11. Seasonal snowfall as of Feb 24th stands at 124 cm at my site. We had 115 cm through the end of January, but February has been pretty meager at only 8.6 cm, and it doesn't look like much more through the end of the month. February is the least snowy winter month on average in Winnipeg, so it's not surprising that snowfall has tapered off this month.. which is a good thing.

    Mike.. snowpack is not a good indication about what spring precipitation conditions will be like, so we really can't make any correlations between this year and 2010 (or 2011) It has more to do with the overall steering pattern and storm track as to how wet (or dry) the spring will be.. and that's an unknown at this point.

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