Sunday, May 12, 2013

Warmer week ahead..

After a rather cool weekend, warmer weather is on tap for southern Manitoba this week, as temperatures climb back into the 20s. Strong southerly winds gusting to 60 or 70 km/h Monday morning in Winnipeg and the Red River valley will signal the start of the warmup, with temperatures climbing into the low to mid 20s in the afternoon as winds shift into the west.  On Tuesday morning, a disturbance crossing southern Manitoba will bring an area of showers across the Red River valley, with the slight chance of an isolated thunderstorm in spots. This unsettled weather will move through by late Tuesday with generally dry and seasonable  weather for the balance of the week, with daily highs in the low 20s.  Unsettled weather is likely to return by Friday, with models indicating the potential for a stronger system affecting southern Manitoba by Sunday or Monday with heavy rain possible. The warmer weather along with some moisture and higher dewpoints will hopefully help accelerate leaf budding this week, which is still behind normal due to the prolonged winter and delayed spring this year.   

48 comments:

  1. Mike (St.James)9:40 AM, May 13, 2013

    Any chances that we might get thunderstorms this weekend? Or is that out of the question? Forecasts just south of the border near hannah are saying chance of showers and thunderstorms what do you think Rob?

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  2. Next weeks system sure looks like a doozy! That's the most rain we've seen in a long time

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  3. Mike..

    Based on current guidance, looks like best instability with weekend system will be mainly south and east of us.. with a widespread rain developing over us on the NW flank of the storm. But it's still early.. and we'll have to see how models handle this system over the next few days.

    In the shorter term, models still hinting at some convection Tuesday morning over RRV with isolated thunderstorms possible.. but instability looks marginal.

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  4. Rob,
    why dose EC not have a rain fall warning for Duaphin when have 15-25 MM of rain tonight?

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  5. One word for the upcoming weekend....WET!

    Going to be interesting to see how the models handle the trough. All models agree on plentiful moisture streaming up the US Plains on Friday and right through the Long Weekend. Some models even develop a closed low close by on the weekend. That would mean a lot of rain and maybe some thunderstorms.

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  6. Anon, 15-25 mm doesn't fit the criteria for rainfall warnings. They are issued when at least 50 mm of rainfall is expected within 24 hours or at least 75 mm within 48 hours. Criteria can be found here:

    http://www.ec.gc.ca/meteo-weather/default.asp?lang=En&n=D9553AB5-1#rainfall

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  7. First 30C readings of the year in southern MB, with Morden, Gretna and Emerson all cracking the 30C mark this afternoon.. Gretna up to 32C!

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  8. I am not a fan of this time of year... from hot to cold in just a day or two, it's hard to adjust. Wasn't it -8°C in the city just yesterday morning? More than 30 degrees warmer today, in the shade, with an even bigger difference in the sun.

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  9. High of 27.5C at YWG airport today.. warmest day of the year so far. Gretna was the provincial and national hot spot at 31.9C.

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  10. I hope the models are overdoing things on that weekend outlook.. if not, there aren't going to be too many happy campers this holiday weekend! Is it too much to ask for 3 days of sunny warm weather for a long weekend?

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  11. Rob, are we in for some heavy rain and some thunderstorms this weekend?

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  12. >>Anonymous said.. Rob, are we in for some heavy rain and some thunderstorms this weekend?

    That's what the current long range concensus is.. lots of rain Sunday into Monday, with GFS and Euro giving about 35 mm of rain to Winnipeg, and GGEM giving 65 mm. Models are bringing an intense system over Dakotas into NW Ontario, with some convection blowing up over Dakotas and southern MB Saturday into Sunday. As I mentioned before, best instability at this point looks to be mainly south of the US border, but it's still a long ways off, and certainly there's a potential for some thunderstorms over southern MB at least initially with the system before it changes to a widespread cold rain by Monday. As I mentioned earlier, I'm hoping the models are overdoing it.. lousy timing over a holiday weekend if it pans out.

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  13. Rob, when you say cold rains Monday does this mean we are going back to well below normal temps again by then?

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  14. Like rob said, 31.9C in Gretna today. They were the national warmspot and it's the first time Manitoba is the Canadian hotspot this year.

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  15. >> Anonymous said...Rob, when you say cold rains Monday does this mean we are going back to well below normal temps again by then?

    That's what the long range models show right now, at least for the latter part of the holiday weekend into early next week. Can't seem to get into a sustained warm pattern for any length of time..

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  16. So, how cold is gonna be this time, are we talking temps in the single digits as daytime highs and do we rebound by middle to late week next week?

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  17. 12z GFS an ugly run for southern MB this weekend. Precipitation depicted every day this weekend. Storms possible on Saturday with some elevated instability sneaking north of the border and PWATS in excess of an inch.

    Rain and wind the story for the latter half of the weekend. GFS verbatim gives more than 2 inches for a good chunk of southern MB, including Winnipeg.

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  18. Cells have popped up just northeast of Winnipeg with some lightning strikes.

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  19. Some impressive early season heat to our south over eastern Nebraska and western Iowa with temps at or above the 100F (38C) mark today. Sioux City, Iowa has hit 104F (40C), the earliest they have ever hit 40C (by two weeks), and easily beating the daily record high of 36C.

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  20. Hey Rob

    What are the winds going to be like tomorrow? Out at north Perimeter the wind is howling and now raining.

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  21. That winds is just ferocious! Surprised there's no warnings. Our front door flew open by itself from the wind and our gate flew open (backwards); will have to be replaced looks like it, latch broke.

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  22. >> Daryl said.. Hey Rob, what are the winds going to be like tomorrow? Out at north Perimeter the wind is howling and now raining.

    Daryl.. winds will be a lot lighter Wednesday compared to today. Winds should start off light in the morning, then pick up to NW 20-30 km/h by midday as the day heats up, with gusts up to 40 km/h possible by mid afternoon. But certainly nothing like today's 50-70 km/h winds.

    As for no wind warnings today.. EC issues wind warnigns for sustained winds of 70 km/h or higher for at least an hour, and/or wind gusts of 90 km/h or more. So far, winds in southern MB have been just under those thresholds.. generally in the 60gusting 80-85 km/h range.

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  23. Looked at the latest GEM-GLB, indicating a chance at LI's from -2 to -10 for Saturday evening, Sunday evening, Monday evening & Tuesday afternoon. How accurate is the GEM-GLB when it comes to these events? What's your opinion? I'm thinking storms some severe through the period only if we get to 20 to 25C as it is predicting for us.

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  24. No sooner do I explain why there's no wind warning out, a wind warning is issued for areas of western and southern RRV. Northwest winds of 70 gusting 90 km/h into this evening for those areas.

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  25. Rob, do you think that there's a chance for severe weather at some point over the weekend or not likely?

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  26. Re: Severe weather chances this weekend

    We may see some elevated thunderstorms moving through here Saturday night, but any severe thunderstorm chances would mainly be confined south of the border closer to the main low. That's how it looks based on current guidance anyways.. however there's a lot of varying opinions on how this system will set up, with potential for locally heavy rain somewhere in southern MB this weekend.

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  27. ECMWF has been darn consistent on mainly missing us here in Winnipeg with the rain on the weekend. Only 5-10 mm Saturday then not much more than that. GFS has recently flavoured less rain for Winnipeg, but it's been inconsistent in regards to that lately.

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  28. Mike (St.James, Winnipeg)4:53 PM, May 15, 2013

    Rob, what's the latest on thunderstorm potential with this system? Any day with this system that we might see them?

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  29. Mike.. the best chance for seeing any thunderstorm activity over southern MB would be late Saturday into Saturday night as the main low gets organized in the Dakotas and pushes a warm front towards the intl border. That will likely initiate some elevated tstorms along and north of the front mainly over eastern North Dakota, with a few of them possibly crossing the border into the southern RRV and SE MB Saturday evening. At this point, models are suggesting bulk of tstorm activity, if any, will stay mainly south of Winnipeg.. but a storm may work its way this far north Saturday night if the steering winds are a little stronger.

    Overall though, it's a complex pattern that models are struggling to get a handle on, so confidence is low at this point about if and where convection will fire up with weekend system.

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  30. Rob, do you think precip for this complex storm will miss us here in Winnipeg entirely over the weekend like the ECMWF model is suggesting?

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  31. I don't think we'll miss it completely, but I also think the current forecast of 4 straight days of rain is overdone. Looks like there will be 2 or 3 waves of precipitation coming in over the long weekend.. mainly Friday night into Saturday morning, Saturday night into Sunday morning and then Monday. But again, a very complex system that will models are having difficulty resolving, especially with development and evolution of convection. So timing of precip will be tricky..

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  32. cool blog Rob!
    i have been surfing the internet for a good weather, this is definitely the best one so far.
    I live in la salle MB and like you LOVE THE WEATHER.

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  33. Mike (St.James,Winnipeg)7:07 PM, May 15, 2013

    Rob, How accurate is the GEM-GLB Model? I have been looking at it for quite awhile on this system, it seems to be lifting a small area of low pressure through the area on Saturday before clearing out overnight to Sunday. Bringing some decent CAPE levels into the region and a bit of shear as well, before the main event arrives Sunday with a lot of rainfall in the secondary low pressure system. It has been pretty consistent in bringing that area of rain, in the 12Z run it has in fact brought it north of the border. John sauder is in fact predicting the amounts reflected from the GEMGLB 30mm he picked Im thinking based on what he said over the radio. So Rob what is your opinion on this model run? look at...
    http://meteocentre.com/models/get_anim.php?mod=gemglb&run=12&stn=PNMPR&map=na&lang=en Thank's a bunch -Mike (St.James,Winnipeg)

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  34. Rob, do you think we'll actually receive 50+ mm here in Winnipeg from this system by the time it ends Monday or Tuesday?

    Also, any chance of temps climbing into the twenties this weekend?

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  35. Welcome to the blog Wilber! Hope you find it helpful! Living in La Salle, you've probably seen a few good thunderstorms. La Salle seems to be a storm magnet in recent years..

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  36. >> Mike (St.James,Winnipeg) said.. Rob, How accurate is the GEM-GLB Model?

    GEM-GLB is a good medium range model, and does pretty well against the GFS and Euro. I don't have official stats, but in my own experience, I think it performs better than the GFS but not quite as well as the ECMWF. But that varies from situation to situation, and sometimes the GEM-GLB can be the best performer, but sometimes it can do quite poorly. Recently, it's been upgraded to a 25 km global model (from 30 km) which seems to have made it wetter with convective systems.

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  37. Hey Rob,

    Are you going to remove the comments having to be approved by yourself soon? I understand the spam and rude comments before but this was a really good blog in the past.

    Now waiting all day for a comment to be approved has made this blog way less enjoyable. If I post a comment I do enjoy others feedback right away instead of sometimes later in the day.

    Just my opinion.

    Thanks

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  38. One option perhaps would to just let the spam or rude comments be posted, and clean them up occasionally, but not get overly concerned about them.

    Somebody in the past while has been looking to get some attention by making some inappropriate posts on here. If you let them post, but don't acknowledge their comments, they no longer get the attention that they are looking for. You just have to realize that they have some personal or mental health issues that they are not dealing with well, and not take any insults personally. Again, just ignore and have a thick skin.

    The other option is to continue to moderate.

    We could put up a poll and vote on it. :)

    Either way, this blog is a complete treat.

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  39. @anon. It goes beyond spam and rude comments. Impersonation was also taking place, which falls under the criminal code depending on intent. So far it was harmless, just very odd.

    Perhaps forcing people to post under an account, no more anonymous posts, would solve the problem. However that may limit the discussion of some issues.

    Garth

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  40. Regarding comment moderation... I was letting the occasional spam post through at times before, and would clean them up when I checked the blog. But last month, someone posted some very offensive and racist comments that do not belong here at all ( or anywhere) which is why I had to start moderating comments. It's not ideal... but it certainly has cleaned up the blog from spurious trolls. But as Garth mentioned, even with comment moderation, some people are still abusing blog privileges.

    I may remove comment moderation in the near future, but there's no guarantee it may not be needed again. In the mentime, I'll try to keep this forum as current and up to date as possible to help you stay informed on the latest weather happenings.

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  41. Thanks. I wasn't aware of the extent of the violations. I'm not a technological wizard by any means, but one must think that if need be, the origination of the offending/impersonating could be traced if need be?

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  42. Mike (St.James, Winnipeg)10:14 PM, May 16, 2013

    I'm not sure who it is, but I wish they would stop.

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  43. Rob, what's the latest regarding the weekend weather. Are we still expecting some moderate to heavy rain with perhaps some thunderstorms?

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  44. I will be putting up a new post tomorrow outlining the weekend outlook. Still looks like the best chance for thunderstorms will be south of the intl border this weekend, with some storms crossing into southern RRV and SE MB, especially late Sunday through Sunday night as the main system intensifies over eastern Dakotas. I'll have more details in tomorrow's post..

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  45. Mike (St.James,Winnipeg)11:52 PM, May 16, 2013

    Rob, the NAM composite reflectivity is hinting at a line of rain/embedded thunderstorms for Sunday. No indications of individual cells hitting SE MB from this model.. Would there be a chance with the main band of rain for storms?

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  46. On another note I noticed that steinbach's weather is taking observations from kleefeld. Has a new weather station been brought in?

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  47. Yesterday's 12Z GEM-GLB shifted northward to severely dump on southern MB for Sunday/Monday, including Winnipeg. Now it moved back south again. Usually it's the GFS which can't make up it's mind. I'm guessing the next model run will shift a bit north again.

    Garth

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  48. Aaron.. Yes, that Kleefeld autostation was set up a few months ago, but Steinbach weather was just updated to get data from there instead of Emerson. I see however that no forecast is available now!! (sheesh, wait all this time to get better current weather, and then you lose the forecast) Hopefully that will be fixed shortly.

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