Milder weather will be returning to southern MB this week as the Arctic airmass of the past few days moves east. Temperatures will rebound to the minus 5 range today into Monday and Tuesday before rising towards the freezing mark by midweek. The main story will be the continued dryness with little or no precipitation expected the rest of the week as storm systems pass by well to the south or north of southern MB. Snowfall has been scarce this winter over the RRV, with no measurable snow so far this month and well below normal amounts over the winter. Snowfall in Winnipeg through Feb 11th this winter has totalled 48 cm, compared to a long term average of 75 cm by this time (64% of normal). Last year, we had already received 115 cm by early February leading up to a major spring flooding situation. (see photo above comparing a stretch of Saskatchewan Ave between this year and last year. Photo credit George Morrison)
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Milder week ahead.. and staying dry..
Milder weather will be returning to southern MB this week as the Arctic airmass of the past few days moves east. Temperatures will rebound to the minus 5 range today into Monday and Tuesday before rising towards the freezing mark by midweek. The main story will be the continued dryness with little or no precipitation expected the rest of the week as storm systems pass by well to the south or north of southern MB. Snowfall has been scarce this winter over the RRV, with no measurable snow so far this month and well below normal amounts over the winter. Snowfall in Winnipeg through Feb 11th this winter has totalled 48 cm, compared to a long term average of 75 cm by this time (64% of normal). Last year, we had already received 115 cm by early February leading up to a major spring flooding situation. (see photo above comparing a stretch of Saskatchewan Ave between this year and last year. Photo credit George Morrison)
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It got quite a bit warmer today then origninally forecasted. Feels nice.
ReplyDeleteNice weather out there again today.......
ReplyDeleteThere has been such a lack of active weather this winter season, that when we do get a 10 cm snowfall, it will top headline news of that day....LOL!!!
ReplyDeleteWow the airport measured 2.5 mm of precip. this February. I know that's not actually true, but wow that shows how innacurate whatever gauge they are using is. The precip. measurements should come from you Robsobs station instead Rob! It's more reliable!
ReplyDeleteWithout the big snow storms this year, I find it makes a huge difference in what winters are like. If we finish the month with no snow this will count as the warmest and driest winter ever in the city, am I correct Rob?
ReplyDelete@Mike: Amazingly, no this likely wont be the warmest winter we've ever seen in the city, in fact likely not even the 2nd or 3rd warmest. Although I'll let Rob do his magic ;)
ReplyDeleteMy crystal ball is telling me......SNOW FREE by the end of the month. Thunderstorms and double digits highs in March. My crystal ball is also telling me something else!!!...and the winning lottery numbers for Fridays Lotto Max are....
ReplyDeleteanonymous.. yes, that 2.5 mm from the YWG airport is false. There's has been NO measurable pcpn so far this month. Those readings come from the YWG automated station which is prone to 0.5 mm false readings due to left over snow melt, wind pumping (which affects the precip gauge) or other factors. Back when we used to have humans taking precip readings or doing quality control on climate data, those false readings would have been removed from the climate record. Now, it's user beware. Ahh, the joys of automation!
ReplyDeleteNote however, that even my Rob's Obs station shows 3.3 mm of precip this month.. but that's due to snowmelt from snow that accumulated in the gauge from January (back when it used to snow :)
It will be interesting to see how long this snow drought can last. According to the GEM, we may pick up 0.5 - 1 cm or so tomorrow afternoon/evening (woohoo.. get out the snowblower!) but then it's dry again the rest of the week. CPC's latets 8-14 day outlook hints at possibly colder and snowier conditions for the last week of February. For the record, Feb 1993 is Winnipeg's driest and least snowy February with a mere 0.2 cm for the month.
Currently, we're tied with the winter of 1930-31 (there's that winter again) for the 4th mildest winter on record in Winnipeg. That's using the current Feb mean of -11.5C.
ReplyDeleteThe following table lists how Feb 2012 would need to finish for us to have a top 3 winter.
mean temp... winter rank
>= -9.4C.... 3rd warmest
>= -5.6C.... 2nd warmest
>= -2.6C.... 1st warmest
Note that our warmest Feb on record was -4.6C, so it would be a stretch for us to finish with the warmest winter on record. But the way things are going, 3rd place certainly looks possible.
Check out Rob's facebook page for some very impressive snow pics from Romania!!! That's where all our snow went this year!!
ReplyDeleteLight snow starting to enter the city from the west.. could see a dusting to 2 cm this afternoon into this evening. Satellite imagery showing some convective looking cloud tops with this system which could result in some heavier bursts of snow from time to time. Our first snow of the month!
ReplyDeleteRadar indicating a small area of moderate to heavier snow between Morden and Morris moving to the east northeast. Could be seeing a quick burst of 1-2 cm in this area over the next hour or so affecting travel on Hwys 14, 23 and 75.
ReplyDeleteAs rob said.....best break out the snowblower for this one. It may be the last time this winter season that you get to use it :-P
ReplyDeleteSeems to be melting as fast as falling. Probably be better to break out the squeegy.
ReplyDeleteA surprising bit more snow than I was expecting today.. close to 4 cm of fluffy snow at my place as of 7 pm.. and still falling. Roads quite messy..
ReplyDeleteBoy is that system inching out of Winnipeg. Very slowly leaving. If it hadn't been so warm today I would think we would have had a decent snowfall. Most of the accumulation seemed to occur as and after the sun went down.
ReplyDeleteThen when precipitation actually DOES fall, the airport measures nothing, 0.0 mm. Lol
ReplyDeleteanonymous..
ReplyDeleteYes, I noticed that too. I don't understand why nothing was recorded at YWG airport yesterday. We had at least 3-4 cm of snow, with a melted WE of perhaps 1-2 mm. The snowdepth at the climate autostation at YWG airport (XWG) went from 3 cm to 6 cm, which seems reasonable, but they only registered 0.3 mm WE.
Just goes to show you how unreliable autostations are with respect to snowfall data. Terrible quality that really needs some quality control before it goes into the climate record.
Beautiful afternoon shaping up with sunshine and light winds.. hard to believe it's -6C out there. Feels like +6C with that sun!
ReplyDeleteHi there
ReplyDeleteNot much weather to chat about in a long while. Anyway working on a webcam gallery for our office...
Do you Rob or anyone know of another link for that Emerson webcam
The only one I have seen is
http://206.45.102.213:8085/jpeg.cgi
But our great US governement computers cannot display it due to firewall constraints or who knows why. If you know of another link or way to at least get an update jpeg image from it let me know.
Thanks
Hi Dan..
ReplyDeleteI'm not aware of another web address for the Emerson webcam other than the one you noted. That webcam is an EC webcam mounted onto the WEX autostation, so it's not really a public access image unless you go through the IP address.
Dan GF!
ReplyDelete2- 4 inches of snow is forecast for areas south of Grand Forks. Finally someone might actually be able to use their snowblower.
Thanks Rob for that info....
ReplyDeleteYes might actually have some fresh snow....not used to that
HI , i will be happy if you come and visit my blog
ReplyDeletehttp://weather2222.blogspot.com/
Anon.....
ReplyDeleteNice blog you have, I look forward to seeing your weather postings. Come by and have a look at mine if you want, click my name to get there.
Some severe weather gearing up down south! Tornado warnings have been popping up like crazy! Boy I sure do miss the severe weather season here.
ReplyDeleteCopy the link below to get the latest.....
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mob/
I was in southern Manitoba today in the Winkler area close to the US border. It is truely amazing how little snow is there. It actully looks like April without the standing water. The fields are all bare and you should feel the heat comming off of them. I've never seen anything like this. The only snow left is in the shaded areas of the ditch and the tree lines.
ReplyDeleteDaryl..
ReplyDeleteSatellite imagery shows a sharp cutoff in the snow line west of a Fannystelle-Brunkild-Morris line. Snow covered areas east of this line didn't get above freezing yesterday, but west of it got up to +4 or +5C. That strengthening late February sun on the dark ground is really making a difference.
We had a similar situation in 2000, when a lack of snowcover in mid-late February allowed temps to rise up to 15C in the southern RRV by Feb 22, and an all time Feb high of 19.4C in GFK. Winnipeg was about 10C cooler on those days with a little more snowcover here.
Rob,
ReplyDeleteAny chance of that system stateside sneaking up and giving us a few cm of snow???
Daniel..
ReplyDeleteBoth the NAM and Euro keep the snow mainly south and east of srn MB Monday, but latest RGEM is quite aggressive in bringing heavier snow over RRV/SE MB with 5-10 cm being shown for Winnipeg.. and 10+ cm over srn RRV/SE MB. Big difference in the models.. Personally I think the RGEM is overaggressive on the amounts, and the NAM is too progressive.. so I'm thinking a couple of cm for Winnipeg/RRV Monday with perhaps 5+ cm east of the RRV. We'll have to keep a close eye on this one as it always makes me nervous when one model is saying 10+ cm and another is saying nothing. Big bust potential. As GFK noted in their AFD, there will be a sharp cutoff on the western edge of this snowband.. with little or no snow to the west, and heavier snow to the east. Where this western edge ends up will be tough to forecast precisely well ahead of time.
18Z run of the GEM now showing a 13 mm bullseye over SE MB between noon and midnight Monday with about 5-10 mm over RRV, including Winnipeg. Most other models bring bulk of precip east of RRV, with Winnipeg just getting clipped with minor amounts. Bottom line.. a close call Monday with an area of moderate to possibly heavy snow moving over ern ND, NW Minn, and SE MB, with a sharp western edge of the snowshield over southern MB along the RRV. Amounts ranging from a dusting to 2 cm along and west of the RRV, to 10 cm or more over SE MB.
ReplyDelete