Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Another soaker for Southwest Manitoba..

As bad as this spring has been over the Red River valley, it's been even worse to our west. Southwest Manitoba and Southeast SK have bore the brunt of several major rain systems that have tracked across the Northern Plains states over the past 4 to 5 weeks. The result has been some amazing rainfall totals over SW Manitoba that have caused numerous problems with record high water levels on lakes and rivers, and a virtual wipeout of any crop this year for area farmers. Tuesday saw another 25 to 50 mm of rain across much of Southwest MB with the heaviest swath from the Virden area to Minnedosa where up to 55 mm was recorded. This is on top of at least 3 other major rain storms in the past 4 weeks that have brought 100-150 mm of rain over the area into the Interlake regions. In Souris, another 25 mm of rain fell yesterday bringing the total since May 1st to a whopping 216 mm, about 300% of normal.

Other rainfall totals since May 1st include.. (data from MB Ag-wx network)

Minnedosa............ 190 mm
Hamiota ............... 187 mm
Virden .................. 181 mm
Pierson ................. 175 mm
Brandon ............... 157 mm



A persistent storm track across the northern plains has resulted in a very wet start to the growing season over much of the southern Prairies, especially over southeast SK and southwest MB where over 200 mm of rain has fallen since April 1st (see map image left). In sharp contrast, things are very dry by the time you get over the central and northern Prairies with precipitation less than 40% of normal over central and northern Alberta (image right). (Maps courtesy of Drought Watch)

11 comments:

  1. HI ROB!
    I just came back from a trip down to Duluth!
    Someone told me today that Minneapolis hit 103 F on Tuesday!
    I could not believe it!!! I was shivering with my jacket on my Lake Superior!
    Talk about a micro-climate with just a few miles up the hill it was 82 F! Did i miss any big storms on Tuesday here in Winnipeg??

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  2. Hopefully we get a change soon and get into a much drier and warmer weather pattern...

    On another note, has anyone else heard that we could get to see a nice aurora borealis display tonight? A large solar flare that left the sun on June 6-7 is supposed to cause an "extreme" auroral display - K index of 5 or 6 around Earth tonight into tomorrow night. Link to more info on my name.

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  3. I went out and saw the auroras tonight, very beautiful. Tomorrow's supposed to be active too, so I might go out again.

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  4. Yesterday's 5 day from EC looked promising. TWN's...not so much. Showers/t-showers or chance of everyday from the 13th to the 22nd.

    I'm trying to be optimistic but I don't see anything that would signify a pattern change to warm and dry for the remainder of June. Wetter and cooler will write off June 2011. Here's hoping for a better July.

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  5. daniel..

    Yeah.. you missed some real exciting weather here Tuesday. We had MORE RAIN! (roll eyes)

    No big storms here Tuesday.. a few lightning strikes in Winnipeg but nothing interesting. There was some marble size hail and strong wind gusts with some storms over SW Manitoba, but nothing severe..

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  6. Those graphics are impressive. When you add in last years moisture, May 1, 2010 to the present!! There are very few locations in the Cdn Prairies and Northern US Plains which have not rec'd record totals.
    Your links today indicate that I 29 in South Dakota/IOWA will be closed by floods again in the next few days between Sioux City and Omaha due to these same Agassiz like rains.

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  7. Hey everyone!

    Has anyone ever checked out the weather postings on the Minneapolis Star Tribune?? It is done by Paul Douglas!
    It is not all about Minneasota weather. Kinda done like Jeff Master's blog on weather underground, with many very interesting weather tidbits from around the globe!

    Check it out!! :-)

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  8. The rain and its effects seem similar on both Manitoba West and the prairies and the upper Mississippi Plains states for 1950. See
    http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-study/88054/mississippi-river-floods-climate-change
    and
    http://dnr.ne.gov/floodplain/docs/Flooding_1950.html

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  9. Has anyone noticed that Portage La Prairie (southport) does their full observations much later now than they used to!! Is that something that started just a while ago???

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  10. Very nice last few days with low winds and lots of sun! Pretty sad I'm worshiping this when we are still below normal!

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  11. Beautiful day shaping up tomorrow with lots of sun, light winds and temperatures right on normal of 23C. Increasing clouds Sunday as next disturbace moves in with showers and scattered thunderstorms pushing into southern MB Sunday into Sunday night and Monday.. with locally heavy rainfalls of 15-25 mm possible. Hopefully heaviest storms will miss SW Manitoba and Lake Manitoba area.. but any pcpn out there is making people very nervous.

    Looks like more unsettled weather moving in for midweek with no sign of any major sustained warmup over us over the next week or two.. (as noted above) And the way things are going, perhaps staying cool right through the end of the month.

    For the record, coolest June at Winnipeg airport (since 1939) was back in 1969 with a monthly mean temp of only 12.2C (normal 17C). That month saw only 10 days reach 20C or more, with only one day all month of 25C or more (max 26.7C) That June even had 4 days of frost, with a very late frost of 0.0C on the 20th. Warmer weather returned in July and then August was nice and hot with 9 days of 30C or more, including a max temp of 36.7C. So hang in there warm weather lovers.. things can change for the better!

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