Sunday, June 01, 2014

Warm finish to May salvages slow start to spring..

Temperature departure from normal
for last week of May shows core of warmth
over northern Plains/southern MB (finally!)   
After a dreadfully long cold winter and slow start to spring, persistent warm weather finally returned to southern Manitoba for the end of May, with temperatures some 5-10C above normal over the last week of the month. The pattern change to warm weather was long overdue and finally signalled a break in the below normal temperature pattern that had persisted since last fall. Thanks to the late month warmth, the month finished with an average temperature of 11.3C, just 0.3C shy of normal for May (1981-2010 average of 11.6C)

The warm weather included the season's first 30C weather in Winnipeg, with highs of 33.3C on May 24th (record high) and 32.7C on May 29th. . These marked the hottest May days in Winnipeg since 1995 and the first time since 1995 that we've seen two or more 30C days in May. Amazingly, this hot weather came only 10 days after a trace of snow was recorded on the 14th, the only snow of the month. Rainfall for the month was only 42 mm at YWG airport.. about 75% of the normal May rainfall of 54 mm. All in all, a summer like end to May, much appreciated by long suffering residents of southern Manitoba!

For more details on May statistics, see JJ's Winnipeg Weather blog May summary.      

27 comments:

  1. Rob, it looks like cooler than normal weather will be returning in June however. Is that correct?

    Thanks, Anon

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    1. Yes, at least for the next week or so. Temps only in the teens Friday and over the weekend, with a gradual warmup towards normal late next week. But then hints of another cool down after that. So this wonderful taste of summer we've enjoyed will take a bit of a hiatus for the first half of June..

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  2. Rob Ironically You can catch a visual of lake winnipeg ice and compare it to previous years on The artic Sea Ice Monitor Link Below Lake Winnippeg is the remaining White spec in the top right.The others are Great northwest lakes.
    http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

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  3. Woodlands radar will be down for the rest of the week due to some major maintenance work on it. Hopefully it will be back up Friday.

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    1. Thanks for the note Rob. Historically Woodlands often fails during bad weather so why not take it down for maintenance as soon as the severe season starts up. Not even a note on ECs radar page explaining the outage. Maybe they are finally going to upgrade the thing to catch up with the USA in terms of current radar imagery.

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    2. That would be nice.. but unfortunately they're just replacing the mechanism that controls the radar elevation angle (tilt) No dual pol upgrade at this point.. but it is planned for the future (within the next 5 years?)

      And yes, it would be nice to have a message on EC's radar page to advise of Woodlands outage, and for how long (until Friday I hear)

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    3. Is the info you're being re. XWL given only available to those with EC connections, or is there a site somewhere that has outage bulletins? The EC dd.weatheroffice.gc.ca server doesn't seem to have anything re. radar status from what I saw.

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    4. They did actually have a special w statement on monday. If you want to see it follow the link:
      http://ecswoodlandsradarstatement.simplesite.com

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    5. Oh wow, did they actually issue a SWS for it? Must've been the one I missed earlier this week right as it expired.

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  4. Note that my weather station cut out last night and missed recording some rainfall. I had 3 mm up to midnight with another 1 mm after midnight. 4 mm total.

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  5. Snowfall warning issued for Churchill and Lynn Lake regions!

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  6. XWL lives again! Back up as of 4:10. Just in time too, watches to the west of the city and to the east of the city.

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  7. Thanks for the heads up Connor. Good to see they got it back online earlier than expected.

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  8. how does it look for tomorrow eve, planning on having a bbq?

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    1. Should be a fairly decent evening.. partly to mostly cloudy, light wind, temperature around 18C. We have some clouds and scattered showers coming in tomorrow morning, and then a chance of some isolated showers in the afternoon which should be through by evening.

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  9. Hey Rob.

    I'm pretty sure you're aware of The weather networks prediction that this summer is going to be slightly below average for winnipeg. What do you think the chances are of this being true? I know that we've had a couple cooler days in a row, but after this the weather is schedualed to warm up almost to average temps, except for wednesday.

    By the way, was wednesday the "another cool down" you were talking about in your first comment?

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    1. Rob The University of Winnipeg and the IISD have prepared a set of PPT slides that report on weather data in the Winnipeg and Prairie region that purports to show our warming weather. In an FP article and Blog the Free Press reporter Mary Agnes Welch says Look at the Data (http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/turning-up-the-heat-262208661.html?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:4a1db177-e533-4b2b-ad6c-7f29ed458797) and I did and I found it spurious or as I said Cherry picked . I've sent her a candid letter most of the important parts can be found in 3 posts on her "Data" Blog at
      http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/blogs/welch/261881452.html
      heres a sample
      After reviewing your column and more importantly the research on Canadian, Prairie, and Winnipeg Temperature Data I am less of a believer in Global Warming due to both Human and Industrial controllable carbon emissions than I was before now. Someone once said belief without proof is a religious requirement. Life Insurance and Investment guru sales departments are held to a much higher standard than this. In fact as I recall the three largest Canadian Insurers namely Great West, Sun and Manulife have been sued and penalized in some cases 9 figures for the use of Statistical Modeling not as bad as these prophets are suggesting we make a very inconvenient and costly bet on.
      Why would this unvarnished missinf be in print without the usual Advert notice on it and the disclaimer about " guarantees cannot be made that future performance will resemble the examples used" ??

      Here is why I think global warming deserves far better from the University and IISD and the Free Press.

      1) Meteorologists and weather geeks will tell you that 30 year weather periods are useful in many comparisons to establish new Norms. and so does EC. You in fact used that phrase on fps website when extolling us to look at the PPT presentation, for noting Winnipeg's climate changes.. The hairs on the back of my neck curled a little when I saw a 40 year period (1971 -2010) used and even more when I saw 2012. I checked. The only first year of a decade that would show an almost +3C increase in temperatures with 2010 is 1971. See the following chart by Julien a U of M Meteorology student who posts an excellent Blog and summaries of local weather statistics at http://jjwinnipegweather.blogspot.ca/
      http://wxrecordbooks.weebly.com/warmest-years.html

      IMO 1981 should have been used (30 years) but ironically that is the one decade starting year that would be warmer than 2010 in Winnipeg and possibly on the prairies, and would fail to show an increase. This graph http://ec.gc.ca/adsc-cmda/default.asp?lang=En&n=77842065-1
      by Environment Canada shows you why 1981 was not used. Now I was hooked


      By default all comparisons ending in those years would show some temperature increase. Why not the years/weather seasons ending in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014. Rob Paola's Blog well known Meteorologist had this to say about 2010 .
      2010 warmest year on record in Canada (since national records began in 1948)

      2010 ended up as the warmest year on record in Canada since national records began in 1948, according to the latest climate bulletin released from Environment Canada. On a national basis, 2010 finished with a mean annual temperature that was 3.0C above normal, surpassing the previous warmest year of 1998 which was 2.5C above normal (normal as defined by 1951-80 average - see table of ranked years) The bulk of the warmth over the past year has largely been concentrated over the Arctic, especially the eastern Arctic which has seen some exceptionally warm weather for 14 consecutive months now. In particular, Iqaluit on Baffin Island finished with its warmest December on record, a phenomenal 14C above normal, capping off its warmest year ever recorded. 5 of the top 10 warmest years in Canada have occurred in the past decade.
      http://robsobsblog.blogspot.ca/2011/01/2010-warmest-year-on-record-in-canada.html


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    2. George..

      I think that below normal summer forecast is based on correlation with other years coming off a cold winter/spring and then into an emerging El Nino. All I can say is.. maybe. But honestly, I just don't have any idea how our summer will turn out. Seasonal forecasts, especially summer, are just too difficult to predict with any consistent accuracy. I'm hoping for the best..

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    3. "There's something happening here
      What it is ain't exactly clear.. "

      - Buffalo Springfield, "Something's Happening Here" (1967)

      JayC..

      I try to stay away from climate change/GW debates since both sides can be accused of "cherry picking" stats to support their viewpoints. I try to focus on the stats.. and to me, there's pretty compelling evidence to suggest that our global and regional climate has indeed been warming over the past 30 years. But extrapolating into the future is a much more difficult exercise, since we just don't know all the variables that will influence our global and regional climate in the years and decades ahead, even with the help of global climate models. But if these past few years are any indication of what we're in for.. we're in for a wild ride!

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    4. I couldn't agree with you more which is why I was stunned to see the chart that was halfway down the page on Jjc Winnipeg weather Blog. That really started me thinking that there is way more to this
      http://jjwinnipegweather.blogspot.ca/
      http://wxrecordbooks.weebly.com/warmest-years.html

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    5. Rob that song brings back some great memories of the southern Ontario and Manitoba music scene when Sills and Neil Young et al aka BS recorded that and yes I was working in both locations.Or as they say at the tip of the two ON lakes.and the Bottom of MBs.
      "and the Winds of November came early".

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  10. Some small hail on the east side of the city a few minutes ago!!

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  11. Rob, what are the chances of us recieving more severe weather once late June rolls around, I'm thinking like in a week or so, what do you think? Sorry i havent been around in a while, hope things are going well with you. Caannot wait to fi nd out what this summer holds. :D Lets put an end to the Winnipeg dome and periMeter sheild thing.

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  12. Rob, what are your thoughts on this upcoming weekend's rain system??

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    1. Looks wet.. especially Sunday. We have a warm front pushing up from North Dakota Friday night that will spread an area of showers into southern Manitoba Friday night into Saturday, possibly giving 5-10 mm to Winnipeg by Saturday afternoon (although some models are showing much less.. only a couple mm with the first wave). We get a bit of a break Saturday afternoon before another wave of rain moves in Saturday night into Sunday as a more potent system intensifies over northern Minnesota. That will likely bring steadier and heavier rain for Father’s Day (and the Manitoba Marathon) with 15-25 mm possible for Winnipeg. Not the best timing on the weekend, but the rain will be beneficial, and most marathon runners would rather run in the rain than in the heat. Rain expected to taper off later Sunday into Sunday night.

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  13. Hello Rob! Do you have a 'contact' email address? I cannot find one on your website. My 'no-ip' free domain provider was impacted by Microsoft recently, so your link to my 'live' Morden weathercam is no longer valid.

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    1. What's your email? I'll contact you.. (Although your webcam still seems to be updating OK..)

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