Strong storm to affect North Dakota/Minnesota by Friday

A strong spring storm system over the southern US plains this morning will track north towards Iowa by Friday bringing a wide swath of stormy weather to our south over the next 48 hours. Fortunately for southern MB, this system will stay to our south and is not expected to affect us, but will be a factor for our neighbours in North Dakota and Minnesota. This system spawned numerous severe thunderstorms across Texas and Oklahoma Wednesday with several tornadoes reported. As this system moves north, colder air will wrap behind the system and start producing an area of heavy snow on the north and northwest flank of the storm Thursday night into Friday. Heavy snow from this system will likely affect southeast ND through northern Minnesota with 6-15" of new snow possible by Friday night. This comes on the heels of another major storm just last weekend that produced over 2 feet of snow in virtually the same area. And you thought our spring was slow to arrive! Winter storm warnings are in effect from Colorado to Minnesota due to this intensifying storm, and the National Weather Service has even issued a rare blizzard warning for the Duluth area, very unusual for April, due to the expected heavy snow and strong northeast winds off Lake Superior.

Spring has sprung!

Beautiful day out there.. and more of the same over the next couple of days with sunshine and temperatures in the double digits. Now that we have finally lost our snowcover, that April sun will be able to heat up the land and air a lot quicker, giving us some nice springlike weather through Thursday. Things may get a little cloudier and wetter by the end of the week however as another major storm system tracks through Minnesota by Friday. This system may bring yet another round of heavy snow to portions of North Dakota and northern Minnesota by the weekend! Let's hope it doesn't edge further north!

Winter Storm Watch Issued for Grand Forks/Nrn Minnesota

A winter storm watch has been issued for eastern North Dakota and northern Minnesota for this weekend, south of a line from Grand Forks to Lake of the Woods. A storm system over the northern Rockies Friday will move across the Dakotas over the weekend, bringing a swath of heavy snow across portions of eastern ND and northern MN Saturday night before moving into NW Ontario Sunday. 10-20 cm of snow is possible in the watch area as well as northwestern Ontario between Kenora and Thunder Bay. People planning on travel this weekend south and east of Manitoba should be prepared for possible poor driving conditions as this storm system develops.

Nice today.. colder Friday

Should be a nice day today with partly sunny skies and a mild westerly breeze pushing temperatures close to the 10 degree mark this afternoon over southern Manitoba, especially over snowfree areas. But the mild weather will be short lived as an Arctic airmass over northern MB pushes south on Friday. A sharp cold front is marking the leading edge of this airmass which is producing very cold temperatures of -20 to -30C over northern MB today. This cold front will push through central MB this evening and southern MB on Friday, although the core of the cold air will stay over the north as the cold front weakens somewhat. Nonetheless, I don't expect temperatures to climb much above freezing Friday over most of southern MB, along with occasional light snow as the colder air moves in.

Format changes to Rob's Obs

I made a few changes to my main website today. The main change is the addition of a new drop down menu that replaces the older clunky one I had (thanks Daniel for the script) The drop down menu is a little more organized than before, with some new menu links including "CURRENT OBS", "SIG WX" and "PRECIP". Radar menu is dropped in favour of just clicking on the radar image to get to the new and improved radar page. "CURRENT OBS" displays latest observations from weather stations across southern MB and elsewhere (see "LATEST OBS" page for a quick overall summary) "PRECIP" menu will link you to all pages related to precipitation and rainfall. See the PRECIP PAGE link to get the local weather stations rainfall readings that used to be displayed on my previous layout. Also, I've replaced the Weatherbonk temperature plot with a new local temperature map (from Gorilla Wx)

Hopefully you find these changes an improvement to the site, especially for site navigation. Comments welcome. I've noticed the new drop down menu has a little time lag before it downloads (don't know why), so be patient for it. If you prefer the old layout, you can still access it at http://members.shaw.ca/wpgwx/robsobs/homeold.htm