Tuesday, October 03, 2017

Nice start to Thanksgiving weekend.. with a cool finish

The weather is looking good for the start of Thanksgiving weekend as a strengthening southerly flow brings above normal temperatures to southern MB on Saturday. Brisk southerly winds gusting to 50 km/h will send temperatures up close to the 20C mark throughout the RRV, including Winnipeg. Conditions are expected to be dry with sunshine giving way to some afternoon cloudiness.  A cold front will cross the region Saturday night bringing cooler conditions Sunday with brisk west winds and highs around 15C. The good news is that conditions should remain rainfree Sunday with a mix of sun and cloud. Another cold front will push through Sunday night bringing cloudy and colder weather Thanksgiving Monday, with highs only around 9C, brisk NW winds and a chance of showers. Whatever the weather, have a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend!    

56 comments:

  1. Hi rob! Does it look like we will be below normal from Monday onwards through mid month?

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    1. Doesn't look that cool next week.. more like normal temps after Monday (normal highs are now 13C) Temps possibly rebounding to above normal for second half of October

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    2. Really? The weather network seems to think we are in for a string of single digit highs starting around the 14th. Where are the indications for these above normal temps?
      I hope we don't have a November like last year, that's how it started off, with warm temps in second half of October.

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    3. I'm going by CPC outlooks which are indicating above normal temps in general for our area for the latter half of October, They will release their updated 3 week outlook this afternoon, so we'll see if there are any changes.

      Keep in mind, "normal" highs for us drop to around 10C by Oct 18th, so double digit highs in the latter half of October would be considered near to above normal.

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    4. Thanks Rob. Yeah I keep forgetting how fast normals are dropping now.

      You don't think we are in for a repeat of last years November do you?

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    5. Last November was our warmest November in over 140 years of records. Very unlikely we would have another one like it two years in a row. At this point we have no idea how November is going to shape up… just too far ahead to give a skillful prediction. Generally Novembers have been milder than normal in recent years, but right now I can't say how November is going to go this year.

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    6. Thanks Rob. I agree it is highly unlikely that we’d see another November like it. Yes the November’s have been trending warm but look at 2014, which had a very cold November.

      Could we hit 20C today rob?

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  2. -1.5C at 7AM. Coldest of the season so far

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  3. Official low of -2.2C in winnipeg

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  4. That -2.2 C is the coldest anywhere in the Winnipeg region when looking at all weather stations. Manitoba-Ag and EC stations show that temperatures stayed above freezing over the southern Interlake and western RRV. Locally, the coldest location was Brunkild at -1 C.. with all other rural stations at or slightly below freezing. Some scattered private weather stations got as low as -1.5 C outside the city. In Winnipeg, only the far outskirts dropped below zero. In other words, no other station in our region experienced a "hard freeze".

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    1. The airport is dropping fast and already at 4C as of 9PM. Possibly another hard freeze tonight

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  5. Robs station has turned colder than the airport as the light northwest flow has switched to a southerly flow. Frost not looking likely tonight now

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    1. Didn't quite make 20C today.. but came close with a maximum of 19.2 at Winnipeg airport today. On average, Winnipeg sees 2 days of 20C temps in October, but in 1 out of 6 Octobers, we fail to reach the 20C mark. The most 20C days in October was a phenomenal 16 in October 1963, our warmest October on record. That month included a record streak of 11 straight days of 20C or more from Oct 8-18th.

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    2. Thanks Rob. It looks like this will probably be one of those October’s we don’t make it to 20C.

      That October 1963 was insane. How in the world does an October get so warm? I looked at the EC climate logs and those temps are just unbelievable..... that was also our warmest fall on record, and last year got really close to beating it.

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  7. Now that was an impressive storm tonight!! Better than any we had all summer!! Is this late for a storm that strong? And we weren’t even expecting storms.

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    1. A bit of lihgtning and thunder at my place, but not much rain.. only about 0.4 mm. Heavier to my south

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    2. Here in st james, which isn’t that far from Charleswood it was very impressive! Heavy downpour and fork lighting. Impressive for October. This will also place in the top 30 latest thunderstorms

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  8. Rob, are we looking at a hard freeze tonight?

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  9. Didn’t get to freezing last night. But with below freezing dewpoints right now and a rather cool day, I think it’s highly likely we will see a hard freeze tonight.

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  10. Another hard freeze this morning. Rob am I correct in saying it’s highly likely that we will be well above normal for the rest of the month?

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    1. We stay above normal thru tomorrow, then a bit of a cooldown to near seasonal over the weekend into early next week. Trending above normal again later next week, possibly through the end of the month.

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    2. Thanks rob. I see this fall is going to take the path of last years isn’t it..... frustrating for us winter lovers. We’ve had 2 very mild falls in a row and 3 mild winters. It’s time for a classic one. I don’t possibly see how November can be as warm again. That would be unreal. Things can change fast though as they did in November 2014. So I’m hoping they will change.

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  11. Rob! I’ve been hearing talk of some snow this weekend. Environment Canada has periods of mixed rain and snow on Saturday with a high of 7C. Now I don’t see how it can snow at that temperature but do you think we’ll see some?

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    1. Keep in mind that temperature of +7C refers to the high for the day.. not when the snow (if any) is expected to fall. If snow is in the forecast with well above freezing temperatures, then it likely means snowfall is occurring early in the day when temperatures are closer to freezing, before the precip turns to rain or ends as temperatures rise. More accurately the forecast should read.. "snow changing to rain", but EC's automated forecasts beyond Day 2 don't give that type of detail. So you're stuck with "snow or rain" and a high of +7C which sounds kind of nonsensical. (I've seen a forecast say "periods of snow" with a high of +10C!)

      Now, is it going to snow Saturday? Well, there's a slight chance precip may start off briefly as wet snow here in Winnipeg.. but there is a better chance of snow over western MB into the interlake regions Saturday morning as an impulse tracks across southern MB. Snow, if any, would be most likely over higher elevations of western MB, especially north and west of Portage La Prairie where 2 to 5 cm is possible.

      Precip will likely be mainly rain by the time it reaches Winnipeg by late morning/afternoon.

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    2. Thanks Rob. I would love to see some flakes. I’m sick of boring rain. Even if it was just enough to coat the ground it would be nice. I’m in the minority probably but I love to take long walks when it is snowing.

      Either way, a sign that winter is drawing closer every day. Many trees are getting quite bare now. Is there still no way to predict what we’ll be seeing this late fall/winter?

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    3. Now the forecast for Saturday just says "cloudy" for Winnipeg with no mention of precipitation. Very odd given most guidance is indicating measurable rain mixed at times with wet snow Saturday. Ahh, those automated forecasts..

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    4. Yep I saw that. Aren’t those automated forecasts lovely? I’m sure I could do better than that. Ha they should hire me. I think I’d probably be better than statistics than they are with all their data issues.

      The high of 7C remained the same though.

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    5. Weather network indicating mixed precipitation starting tomorrow night after midnight. Could it start that early?

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  13. Rob, the weather network seems to think we will get 1cm of snow. What are your thoughts on this? Is snow likely now?

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    1. Latest guidance showing precip starting around 6-7 am in Winnipeg.. likely as a mix of rain and wet snow. Precip will likely change to all snow for awhile in the morning before ending or changing to light rain by midday. I suspect most of the snow will be melting on contact with the warm ground, but there could be a slushy 1 or 2 cm accumulation on grassy surfaces if the precip band is strong enough Saturday morning. Any snow that falls however won't stick around long as temps rise to +5C to +7C by mid to late afternoon.

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    2. Yes!!!!! So it is looking likely we are going to see our first accumulating snow of winter? This will be a lot earlier than last year! I absolutely love walking outside during snowfall. Why are a lot of apps saying just rain then?

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  14. Rob did we freeze last night? I saw the hourly low was 0.2C but I’m not sure if it got lower I’m between hours.

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  15. Rob, the weather network is now calling for a high of +3C tomorrow with up to 2cm of accumulating snow. Are the models showing colder with snow now? What happened to that 7C?

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  16. Rob is your station not updating? It’s 8PM and the last reading shows as 6:40PM. I noticed it’s been doing that a lot lately

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    1. Hit refresh to update your cache.. my site stats will stay at the last visit unless cache is updated.

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    2. I’m on my iPhone but it still stays the same when I refresh. Sometimes for up to 2 hours

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    3. Odd.. seems to be updating fine on my devices.

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  17. The predicted low is +1C yet it’s down to +0.4C as of 8PM. Yeah, that makes sense.

    Are we not going to get much colder tonight?

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    1. revised forecast low down to -1C. Our temps should hold fairly steady around the freezing mark all night.

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  18. Rob! How much snow did you record at your place? Is this the first official snow of the season?

    The ground is covered here!

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    1. Yup, first snow of the season for Winnipeg! 2.0 cm at my place, 2.8 mm melted water equivalent. Snow began around 3 am and was pretty much done by 630 am. Precip came in earlier than expected for Winnipeg overnight which meant more snow for us. Should be melted by the afternoon and then a nice rebound next week.. 15C by Monday, 19C by Tuesday, low 20s possible by end of the week!

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    2. Thanks rob! Wow last year our first snow wasn’t until November 22nd. What a change this year!

      I don’t like how we are headed to the 20s again. I want winter cold!

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  19. It snowed a little bit more around 11AM rob. What was the final total at your place?

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    1. Just a trace amount more.. final total remains at 2 cm.

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    2. Thanks rob. Actually, according to the record books we broke the daily snowfall record of 1.5cm in 1958!! That’s pretty cool. Is it unusual to get accumulating snow this early?

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    3. Not unusual at all to get accumulating snow in Winnipeg in mid October. Has happened numerous times. Back in 2009, we had 10 cm on Oct 9th. We've had 13 cm on Oct 2nd (1950) and 18 cm as early as Sep 25th (1872) Over SW MB, they had a massive 35-45 cm dump of snow on Oct 6 2005. And for sheer snow insanity in October, consider October 1959 in Brandon. They had back to back snowstorms between Oct 6 and 10th that dumped 85 cm of snow (49 + 36 cm) then another storm on Oct 25-26th that dumped another 24 cm. Oct 1959 ended up as Brandon's snowiest month EVER with an astounding 115 cm.

      Bottom line.. measurable snow in October in southern MB is not at all unusual, especially over SW MB where elevation is a little higher. In fact, we can get some epic snowfalls in October if the setup is right. Generally though, October snowfalls will disappear before it sticks around for good by mid to late November.

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    4. Thanks for the info Rob. Yeah October snowfalls usually disappear. That September 25th 1872 storm, how is that even possible to get that much snow that early? I would imagine it all melted after?

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    5. There was also that 20-30 cm snowfall in southeastern Manitoba October 4-5, 2012. That one just missed Winnipeg with only a couple slushy cm over a couple days. Power lines down and took days to repair.

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    6. Totally forgot about that one. This shows the importance of maintaining snowfall and climate observations.. because these events are so easy to forget as the years go by. How would we know the rarity or frequency of these events if we don't maintain a good quality climate database to preserve the data? How do we assess trends, extremes and climate change impacts if we don't keep reliable climate records? We need this data.. and debating about climate change impacts becomes pointless if you don't have credible evidence to back your claims.

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    7. I agree rob. And as JJ told me on his blog, it seems October snowfalls are getting rarer as well. Winnipeg hasn’t had a good snow in October in a long time. I’m glad we got our first snow much earlier this year, and I hope our winter is going to start earlie.

      Regarding the Sept 25th 1872 snow, how is it possible for a blizzard to develop over Winnipeg that early?

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    8. There isn't any info on that Sep 1872 event (too far back) so I really can't provide much insight into what may have happened. I can't even verify that 18 cm actually fell (perhaps it was a mix of rain and wet snow that they coded as all snow back then, or it was actually 1.8 cm instead of 18) It's awfully early for that much snow to fall in Winnipeg (would be more likely over higher elevations of western MB) but I suppose it *could* happen given an extreme out of season set up. However, given that we've never had a September snowfall anywhere close to that since 1872, I have some suspicion about that 18 cm figure.

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    9. Thanks rob, and yeah that event has always fascinated me. I wish there was info on it but I suppose we will never know. I would imagine it’s possible though especially in the colder climate of the 1800s. 1872 was actually the year that records began, so pretty much as far back as our records go.

      It always makes me wonder, what was the climate like before 1872? We know the late 1800’s were cold but what was it like in the 1840’s 50’s and 60’s? I suppose we will never know although it would be really interesting.

      It would have to be a really extreme out of season setup. Like March 2012, but the “ winter “ version of it, if that makes sense.

      Do we have a log of all first snowfall dates going back to 1872? I would be very interested to see it

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    10. Matthew.. We don't have any weather data for southern MB prior to 1872, but there is a great detailed climate record from Fort Snelling Minnesota (now Minneapolis) from 1820 to 1870. Obviously it's not exactly what would have been experienced in southern MB back then, but it does give you a good idea of the general climate conditions over this part of the world back then.

      See: https://www.climatestations.com/minnesota-weather-history-1820-to-1869/

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    11. Thanks rob I will look at that for sure!

      Do we have a log of the first snowfall dates of every winter season back to 1872? Maybe JJ could make a graph or put that on the record books website? It would be super interesting to see the trend of first fall and last spring snowfall dates

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