Friday, June 15, 2007

Showers moving in for Manitoba marathon..

It looks like the Manitoba marathon will be encountering some wet conditions for Sunday. An area of low pressure over the Dakotas will spawn some showers and thunderstorms south of the border Saturday night which will advance northward into southern MB by Sunday morning. Timing of the showers moving into Winnipeg is still uncertain.. but it appears that the race should start off dry for the 7 am start with comfortable temperatures around 15-18C, and light southeast winds. Clouds will thicken through the morning with showers arriving by mid to late morning. Some of the rain could be heavy at times as well with the possibility of a thunderstorm. Temperatures will level off around 20C or even fall in the afternoon as the rains pick up. So if you're running on Sunday, prepare for a wet finish, unless you're really fast! Good luck to all the runners..

3 comments:

  1. Its amazing how almost all the disturbances coming off the pacific in May and June have taken the same path. The associated surface lows have all tracked from Fargo to Fort Francis. That leaves the Winnipeg area with cold, miserable conditions.

    Most of the forcing and instability stays south of the border...with usually only drizzle/ light rain here. The only exception was this last week...when we finally tapped into the warmth and moisture. But its back to that pattern for Sunday...ohwell, atleast we had a couple of days that actually felt like summer.

    Dan

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  2. This type of pattern is actually quite common for us this time of year. A large scale trough sets up over western Canada with a ridge over southeastern United States. That puts the southern Prairies in a southwest flow aloft with a storm track through the Dakotas providing us with showers or thunderstorms every few days. This is one of the reasons why June is southern MB's wettest month of the year on average.

    Last year however we didn't get this pattern in May and June, which resulted in a very dry start to the growing season. This in turn led to a very dry summer since there was little surface moisture available for developing additional showers or thunderstorms. That's how drought can become a self-perpetuating cycle. Doesn't look like a repeat this year..

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  3. yeah...but I'm surprised that the dynamics and instability have consistently set up just to our south. The same areas in North Dakota have been hit with wave after wave of heavy rain and tstorms. Those areas likely are receiving near record precip amounts while araeas from Winnipeg airport and northwest are running pretty much normal in terms of precip.

    Dan

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