Saturday, April 02, 2011

No joke.. spring storm system to bring snow across southern MB overnight into Sunday

A beautiful springlike start to the weekend will end on a wintery note as a spring storm system tracks across the Dakotas tonight into Sunday bringing an area of snow to southern MB. Snow will spread into southwest MB this evening, possibly mixed at first with some rain before becoming heavy at times tonight. A snowfall warning is in effect from Melita to Pilot Mound where 10-20 cm is possible by Sunday, especially over higher elevations. Further east.. precipitation will likely begin as rain overnight in the Red River valley including Winnipeg, before changing to snow early Sunday. Wet snow, possibly heavy at times will continue Sunday before easing later in the day. Snow will likely melt initially however, 5-10 cm of heavy wet snow is possible in Winnipeg and the RRV by the time the snow taper offs by Sunday evening. Travellers should be prepared for a return to wintery weather Sunday over the RRV and much of southern MB with slippery road conditions and poor visibilities at times in heavy snow.

22 comments:

  1. looks like northern most soln to the snow band is winning out like the previous runs of the ecmwf had. looks like all rain in GF...could be some wet snow sun aftn-eve but nothing much. River really responding now with most of the mainstem RED from Oslo-GF southward expected to reach major flood stage in 5-7 days....

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  2. Welcome back to Winterpeg...I mean Winnipeg !
    Hope you had a nice holiday!
    I'm going to Las Vegas in 3 weeks, so I'm hoping to get a nice dose of warm weather!!

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  3. Precipitation has changed to snow in Winnipeg as of 9 am with large wet flakes coming down now. I picked up 6.4 mm of rain before the changeover. Some fairly decent snow accumulations to our west with 15 cm in Rivers (NW of Brandon) and 12 cm in Snowflake (east of Pilot Mound) Morden webcam looks like they picked up a good 5-10 cm there as well.

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  4. Rob, Why is that green patch on the radar just sitting over the same area for the past 5 - 6 hours???
    It would seems area's around the woodlands radar site are getting very heavy snow/rain???1!!

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  5. That area seems to be the pivot point to this precipitation shield.. around which precipitation continues to warp around as the system moves east. In addition, radar could be seeing some bright banding in some areas due to the wet snow/rain mixture that is producing locally enhanced reflectivity radar returns. In that case, it may not necessarily mean heavier snow/rain being observed at the surface.

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  6. Rob Gauges and Radar.. What are those local snow/rain issues at this time of year?

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  7. Already getting water in my basement this year :( Sigh...

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  8. Don..

    When you have precipitation falling around that freezing/melting mark, precipitation echoes can be enhanced on radar due to the effects of liquid water surrounding ice particles (ie snow crystals) Radar thinks these are giant raindrops, and correspondingly displays them as a band of enhanced echoes (ie. bright banding)

    I've picked up another 8 mm of melted slop today as of 5 pm on top of the 6 mm of rain overnight.. fairly significant precipitation event. Thank goodness the lower elevation here in the valley kept our temperatures above zero and prevented heavier snow accumulations for us (unlike further west).

    Regardless, I look longingly at those 30C temperatures in Iowa and Kansas today.. Slowly but surely warmer air is spreading north.

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  9. Rob, 32 C in St Louis today!!!
    Unreal!

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  10. Even more impressive is that 60 cm of snow reported in Willow Bunch SK!

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  11. Is this RobsList I'm looking for an Ark builder..Know anyone?

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  12. Kert..

    Sorry to hear about your basement.. I suspect you're not alone this year. Lots of standing water out there, and today's 15 mm of precipitation didn't help things. Drove by Wilkes this evening, and already some fields look like lakes. Not unusual this time of year.. but it seems more extensive than previous years. We'll need a lot of dry weather to lower that water table this year. I for one would not mind the start of a nice long drought..

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  13. Hi Rob. I was just wondering based on personal interest, what is the most amount of precipitation Winnipeg has ever received in 1 day, 1 month and 1 year? Do such records exist? I know last year at around 722 mm was our second “wettest year” on record but did we receive anything more than that even in the last 200 years or so if anybody even has any record going back that far? And is the greatest 1 day rainfall just the 80+ mm we had in July 1993? And then what about for a month?

    I'm also curious as to where people are viewing ecmwf data charts for precip? All I've been able to find with ecmwf is only upper level charts, 850 mb and higher

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  14. Adam..

    Official Winnipeg weather records go back to 1872 so as far as I know, we don't have any weather records before that for this area. (there wasn't much here before then anyways) Between 1872 and 1939, weather records were taken at St John's College downtown. From 1939 on, official observations have been from Winnipeg airport.

    Officially, the greatest 24 hr rainfall in Winnipeg was 152.4 mm recorded on June 26 1901. That helped establish June 1901 as Winnipeg's wettest month ever at 255.8 mm. Our wettest year was 1962 at 723 mm (which happened to follow the drought year of 1961)

    As far as ECMWF precip charts, I'm not aware of any available free on the internet. I've heard that precip progs are available, but only on a subscription basis. If anyone is aware of publicly accessible ECMWF precip progs, let us know.

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  15. Yesterday's snowfall shows up quite nicely on visible satpix today.. some bright white surfaces over SW MB and western RRV..

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  16. I'd be interested in seeing a precip progs for the ecmwf since its talked about all the time. Dan-GF seemes to be inferencing to one that he can see that's paid or free?

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  17. Rob I believe you posted this link. Red River Basin EM Weather-Hydro Briefing Page Source for recent Last 24and next 24 and 48 precip systems..graphics and text and discussion

    http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=fgf&storyid=66061&source=0

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  18. Ok,How much dirty snow do you have in your backyard????

    I think in a couple of days Winnipeg's snowpack will be offically GONE!!!

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  19. daniel..

    For all intents and purposes, snowcover is pretty much gone from Winnipeg and area. There's still quite a bit left over from snowbanks and in protected areas.. but overall in open areas, I'd say snowcover is pretty much gone now. Offically, I'm calling 3 cm snowdepth this morning from my backyard, but it's fading fast. Barring an unexpected snowfall in the day or two, it looks like April 1-10 will be the winning answer to the poll question as to when our snowcover would disappear. Nice to see.. it truly does feel a little more like spring out there. Even swapped the snow tires for the summer tires today (oh, oh.. hope I didn't jinx anything :)

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  20. Thanks for the link Jim..

    Winnipeg Free Press also has some good links in their Flood Watch section.. including a neat graph comparing the river level in Winnipeg with other big flood years, as well as 8 webcams in southern MB to monitor river levels. Click my name for link..

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  21. There is still about 17cm of snow in my backyard, which is down from a high of 52cm in March. Lots of bare ground in more open areas (i.e. schoolyards, boulevards, etc). However, I'd say that the snow isn't completely gone in Steinbach just yet.

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