Friday, November 20, 2009

Dry spell entering 3rd week

With sunny skies and no precipitation forecast for the next few days, Winnipeg will be entering its 3rd week without measurable precipitation officially recorded at Winnipeg airport. The airport weather station measured 0.5 mm of melted snow early on the 1st of the month, and since then there has been no precipitation recorded, 19 straight days as of today. And long range forecasts don’t offer much in the way of significant precipitation over the next 5 days, although there may be some flurries by the middle of next week as some colder air moves in. All in all, unless there's a significant storm at the end of the month, it’s shaping up to be one of the driest Novembers on record in Winnipeg since 1976 when only 0.8 mm fell during the month, the driest November on record. This is in sharp contrast to the west Coast which has been deluged with rain this month due to frequent Pacific storm systems coming onshore. Some localities have recorded over 500 mm of rain since November 1st, including Squamish, Tofino and Port Alberni.

UPDATE: Winnipeg ended up with 1.5 mm for the month, tying 1901 and 1939 as the second driest November on record. Meanwhile, Port Alberni ended up with over 800 mm for November while Tahsis Village on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island ended up with over 1100 mm for the month!

19 comments:

  1. Why do Weather patterns this year remain uninterrupted for several weeks if not months?

    Examples include cold summer months, day after day of hot September, followed by continuous cold October and now warm and extremely sunny n'dry November.

    Isn't variability the daily norm here?

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  2. We must be very close to exceeding the 140 hours of sunshine record* for this month. Almost 20 days of sunshine so far that likely average 6 to 7 hrs /day

    Is there any other source for this stat?

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  3. That's a good question Jim!!!!

    One I do not have an answer for!!!!
    I never remember Southern Manitoba's weather stuck in weather patterns for such drawn out periods!!

    It looks like next week finally we get into more of a progressive pattern with some colder air and a chance of snow!!!

    Oh by the way!!!
    Since we are already close to matching or surpassing the most double digit highs in November we might as well go for the record!

    Can someone bring a blowtorch to the airport so we can hit the double digits today !!!

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  4. How many record highs has Wpg. broken in the last few days?

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  5. None. Simliar to September when we had no record highs broken as well.

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  6. Take a look at some overnight lows from last night:

    Winnipeg = -9
    Brandon= -9
    Carman = -10
    Portage La Prairie = -1

    Why would Portage end up 8 c warmer than everyone else?????

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  7. Well we just missed out on adding to our double digit highs tally for November. The official high at YWG was 9.8C. Missed it by that much. Saturday looks like a sure bet to get to 10C though.

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  8. 9.8 C
    SO CLOSE!!!!

    Tomorrow looks like there will be more cloud cover and that straight south wind is not as much a warming wind as opposed to a Southwest or West wind!!!

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  9. We're doing pretty good for Nov 20th if we're complaining we didn't hit 10.0C! Look at the weather a year ago today.. a HIGH of -10.6C! My how we've been spoiled this year! :) (Actually, we deserve it after 9 months below normal)

    Tomorrow's record high in Winnipeg is 11.1C.. I think we have a shot at it although it won't feel as nice with those strong south winds. That may be the last double digit temperature until spring. In answer to the previous post, Winnipeg has not hit any record highs this month.. we've been above normal but not record breaking. As jewels mentioned, a similar story in September.. no record highs, but consistently above normal.

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  10. Rob

    Vancouver Island and that Port Alberni rain gage must be British. BBC reported today that one of their isles rec'd 12.63 inches (321mm) of rain in 24 hrs yesterday

    jim

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  11. Hi Jim

    I have a sunshine recorder in my backyard. The location of my recorder is not perfect, as tree branches cast intermittent shadows over it for about an hour a day. Even with that, I have measured 97 hours of bright sunshine this month (120 W/m2) as of sunset on 20 Nov.

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  12. Thanks Dan.

    Roughly that would be 97 of a possible 150hrs (actual less intermittent shadows) or 120 of 150 w/ m2). Projecting w/o the tree branches to 170 possible hours (avg 8.5 hours per day) would appear to give us 110 hrs or 136 W/m2.

    I am interested in the final tally

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  13. Dan P If its nasty Highland weather you want theres more info on the record breaking rainfall in Scotland and Cumbria Click on my name or

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/hi/news

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  14. Rob!

    I know your poll asks will Winnipeg get snow before December 1st !!!

    Looking at the models it looks like we could go right down to the last day!!!

    It will be interesting to see how this plays out!!!

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  15. I have to admit that I'm taken by surprise that the temperature has hit 10 C as of noon in Winnipeg!!
    WOW~

    Maybe we will hit a record today....

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  16. According to SHAW channel 48 the temperature is 12 C in Winnipeg.

    RECORD!!!!!!!

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  17. Wow, 13C now. Old record 11.1°C today, so we broke a record for sure.
    Looks like we might have broken the warmest daily low today too. Amazing!

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  18. Rob!

    I was looking at some of the past winters temperatures on Environment Canada's climate section!!

    I stumbled upon the winter of 2005/2006 and remember how epic the cold snap we had!

    From the middle of January to the start of February we had 20 STRAIGHT days where the temperature never rose above -18 C even during the day!!

    There was one day with the daytime
    HIGH was -35C

    I remember I did not go out of the house (other than work) for that 20 days!!!

    Were you in Winnipeg then Rob????

    Just goes to show you how nasty the cold snap we can get even though that was probably an 1 in 50 year cold snap!!!

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  19. Sorry!
    Typo!
    I mean 1995/1996

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