Saturday, January 16, 2010

Mid January warm spell a record breaker over southern MB

A mild westerly flow of Pacific air brought record breaking temperatures across southern MB today, including Winnipeg. Temperatures soared into the +3 to +6C range in most localities, some 15 to 20 degrees above normal for mid January in southern MB. Slightly cooler weather is expected Sunday and Monday, however above normal temperatures are expected to continue over southern MB through the upcoming week.

Today's record highs across southern MB

SITE............REC HI...................OLD RECORD.........REC BEGAN
Gimli               5.8            2.8    1961       1945
Winnipeg 4.1 3.9 1961 1873
Pinawa 5.2 0.6 1973 1964
Melita 3.5 -1.0 1999 1994
Fisher Branch 5.2 0.5 1999 1978

17 comments:

  1. Looks like we better enjoy all this warm mild weather!!!

    Looks like something is "brewing" for next weekend!!!

    Maybe......

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  2. Maybe.. we'll have to see how the models trend with that system. Note that ensembles show the AO index (Arctic Oscillation) turning sharply negative again by the end of the month. That storm system next weekend may be the pattern changer to colder weather by month's end.

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  3. Lucky me, spent this past week in record-breaking, slightly freezing Florida this week; 15-20C below average for much of the week. Figures.

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  4. A storm next weekend would suit me fine. A week of holidays begins next Sunday for me. Only registered 2.9 in my backyard today, which I really didn't get to enjoy since I spent the day in traffic.

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  5. I'm going to give it a couple more days before I jump on the snowstorm
    bandwagon!

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  6. The way the models are trending, it looks like this system will miss us. On the other hand, the Christmas storm had been all over the map for quite some time before the models started to find a consensus.

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  7. CKY 7 day forecast is calling for
    42 C tomorrow!!

    That quite the warm front!!

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  8. Weathernet is currently calling for snow somewhere between 10-20 cm for next weekend.

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  9. I've already determined that this January will be above-normal in terms of temperature. The models are showing no below normal temperatures in the forecast for the next 10 days, which pretty much takes us through the end of the month.

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  10. Enough cold advection today to keep things below freezing as far south as northern tier counties in N Dakota and Minnesota. Cold core/upper low brushes us to the northeast before impressive upper ridge sets up over us during work week. Very anomalous for this time of year with significantly above zero 850 hPa temps all the way up into N Manitoba.

    Guidance and models downplaying any warmth keeping significant inversion over all the eastern prairies. Although flow does remain southern even up thru 850 hPa... models may be biased towards colder climatology. Plenty of exposed ground starting to show up which could help things out. Conditions are also warmer now off to our south unlike the last time. Will be interesting to see how much warm air will materialize especially over dark forest of central Manitoba.. I think record highs are a pretty safe bet.

    Complex/dynamic pattern to evolve after that as pacific energy carves deep trough over pacific NW. A lot of uncertainty as to exactly how this energy will interact or undercut upper ridge over us...

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  11. The weekend storm looks very interesting to say the least !!

    Right now according to the models it would a nightmare mix of sleet / freezing rain / snow and wind!!!

    i know it's so far away but I can't help but get excited.....

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  12. It's interesting how different the forecasts can be. EC still has not called for any moisture for the weekend and TWN has even increased there snow forecast to be well in excess of 20cm

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  13. I was watching WDAZ weather this morning out of grand forks and they state that if the winter storm were to affect the region this weekend,
    that would be the same storm system that hit at Christmas time!

    The storm in one form or another has traversed all the way around the world and will come this weekend!!!

    I was always wondering if storms could actually do that long journey around the globe!!!

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  14. According to the latest GFS and ECMWF
    Dan GF would be buried under a foot of snow!!!

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  15. EC uses an ensemble model for the last 2 days of the forecast (Day 6 and 7) but it seems to have a dry and cold bias compared to the actual ensemble guidance. I don't know why that is, but it has been noted. Even the ensembles are showing some measurable precipitation for Winnipeg for the weekend, albeit not much at this point.

    Suffice to say there is at least a chance of measurable snow over southern MB this weekend, with an outside possibility of significant accumulations of 10 cm or more over some areas. Agree that this storm system has some similarity to the Christmas storm system which impacted southern MB, with greater impacts south of the border. Stay tuned..

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  16. Why overcast at mild temperatures instead of sunshine?

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  17. Had Manitoba experienced a rare winter thunderstorm in January?

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