Windy warm day in store..

We've had a pretty good run of nice weekends here in Southern MB in September, with some of the warmest days this month falling on the weekends. And it looks like we'll have another nice day today with gusty southerly winds sending temperatures into the mid twenties.. some 10 degrees above normal for the end of September. Those southerly winds will increase by early afternoon with gusts to 60 km/h likely especially through the Red River valley which tends to funnel southerly winds. That should strip off a few more leaves today! A cold front will move through tonight bringing possible showers with clearing and cooler, but still pleasant conditions for Sunday. Nice weather should continue into the first few days of October. Get out and enjoy these last nice days of autumn! (hopefully we get a few more in October.. and even November!)

Heavy rain finally hits Winnipeg

A band of showers and thunderstorms brought locally heavy rain to the Winnipeg area last night, resulting in the most significant rainfall in many areas since July 25th. Much of the city picked up at least 20 mm of rain, most of it falling around 1 am with thunderstorms. At my station, I picked up 22 mm of rain with a peak rainfall intensity of 80 mm/hr at 1 am. Here is a roundup of Winnipeg and area rainfall amounts since midnight. (All but the Forks are unofficial amounts from local private weather stations.)

East St Paul........................ 27 mm
Sanford........................... 26.9 mm
Downtown (U of W)..............25.1 mm
Selkirk.............................22.9 mm
Charleswood (Rob's Obs)...... 22.1 mm
St Vital........................... 21.6 mm
Downtown (Forks) ..............20.0 mm
U of M ag station ............... 19.8 mm
Transcona........................... 18.9 mm
River Heights..................... 18.8 mm
Charleswood (PJ school)....... 18.3 mm
Whyte Ridge.......................... 16.0 mm
Winnipeg Deer Lodge ........... 15.7 mm
Fort Whyte Center................ 15.2 mm
Bird's Hill................................. 10.8 mm
Stonewall............................... 7.6 mm

Summerlike Sunday - part 2

For the second Sunday in a row, summerlike temperatures spread into Southern MB, with 30 degree heat along the US border. Emerson was the national hot spot with a sizzling 32.4C temperature as of 5 pm, with Sprague and Gretna registering 31C temperatures. Winnipeg was also on its way to possibly hitting 30C today, but a cold front came through around 3 pm, with winds shifting into the northeast bringing cooler air from the interlake, knocking temperatures down from 27C to 22c between 3 and 4 pm.

For tonight a band of showers and possible thunderstorms is expected to move across southern MB from the southwest. Models are suggesting between 10 and 20 mm of rain over much of the Red River valley by morning including Winnipeg with some locally heavy rain at times thanks to embedded shower or thunderstorm activity moving up from North Dakota. Hopefully, this rain materializes and doesn't miss us, as has been the case the past couple of months. Look for a blustery and much cooler day Monday with cloudy skies, occasional light rain or drizzle, and temperatures only around 10C. Welcome to the roller coaster weather of fall!

Some much needed rain Thursday?

A weather system tracking across the northern US plains will spread an area of showers across southern MB on Thursday hopefully bringing some much needed rainfall to the south Winnipeg area. Current indications are that between 5 to 10 mm of rain is expected across Winnipeg, although some model solutions indicate as much as 20 mm of rain is possible (more likely with embedded thunderstorms) . This would be most welcome across southern Winnipeg which has been very dry since late July. Lawns here are brown and cracked with a severe lack of subsoil moisture. Here in Charleswood, I've only recorded 26 mm of rain since August 1, with no single rainfall over 5 mm over that time. The last time we had more than 5 mm of rain at one time was way back on July 25th during a heavy thunderstorm when 18 mm fell. So a little rain Thursday wouldn't be such a bad thing..we could sure use it.

Elie, MB tornado reclassified as Canada's first official F5 tornado

The Elie, MB tornado of June 22, 2007 (image left) has been re-classified as an F5 tornado, upgraded from its original F4 rating. This makes the Elie tornado Canada's first officially documented F5 tornado. The re-classification was based on re-analysis of the video data, including video of a home being completely swept off its foundation and obliterated in mid air as well as a heavily loaded van being thrown a considerable distance. (see video here) According to the Fujita tornado rating scale, this type of damage is consistent with an F5 tornado with wind speeds of 400-500 km/h. For further details on the Elie, MB tornado.. see my earlier June blog entries.

Note that tornado ratings are based on the most intense damage found within the track of that tornado. It doesn't mean the tornado was always at F5 strength, but that it reached F5 at its maximum intensity. Note also that tornado strength is based on physical damage caused by the tornado. If a powerful tornado doesn't hit or damage anything, than it can only be classified as an F0 tornado.. no matter how strong it really may have been. As a result, there may have been other tornadoes in Canada that were F5 strength at some point, but they didn't hit any structures during that time to warrant an F5 rating. The Pipestone tornado that hit a day after Elie is a good example of this. This monster tornado is officially rated as an F3, however it didn't hit anything structural at its maximum intensity, staying mostly over open fields and forests at its height (good thing too!)