Monday 5 May 2014

Unsettled Week Ahead

     We'll see some sun and some cloud today with temperatures likely reaching around 12 or 13°C or so. Winds will be light again today, albeit a tad stronger than yesterday.

     Things become unsettled starting tomorrow. A few showers are likely tomorrow afternoon and evening. 5-10 mm of rainfall is possible. A few embedded rumbles of thunder are possible to our west in southwestern Manitoba early in the day, but the risk is extremely small around Winnipeg. I wouldn't expect any here.

     Cloudy conditions continue on Wednesday. A second wave of rainfall is possible Wednesday night, especially over southeastern Manitoba. Winnipeg may be brushed with a bit of this as well. Further detail will be provided tomorrow when it is more certain.

     Generally cloudy and unsettled conditions continue for the remainder of the week.

     At this point, a pleasant weekend is expected with at least some sunshine and possibly our warmest temperatures so far this year. Highs at this point look to reach high teens, which is now normal for this time of year.

26 comments:

  1. JJ, are there any records with the top 10 latest accurrances of 20 C? Think we might come close this year.


    THanks!!

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    1. Rob listed the top 10 latest on his post: http://robsobsblog.blogspot.ca/2014/04/april-ends-on-cool-damp-note-as-below.html

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  2. Well for the first time in what seems like forever, it looks like we will see our first stretch of more than 1 day of warmer temps Friday through perhaps next Monday with temps in the upper teens or possibly even 20C. Now, that's normal temps by then which is nothing to shake a stick at but it will be our warmest weather yet this year so we;ll gladly take it.

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  3. Thunderstorms looking to not materialize today and this evening in southeastern SK and southwestern MB. Low cloud cover has dominated the area for much of the day today. Some thunder is still possible overnight and morning tomorrow in southwestern Manitoba... but I am not very optimistic there will be much. For the Winnipeg area, forget it. Still looking showery here tomorrow afternoon and evening though with 4-8 mm possible.

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  4. Hope fully we don't have such a slow start to the T-storm season this year. Hard to believe, but normally we have a T-storm by April 27th.. So it's a for sure we'll have a late start to the T-storm season, once again. Damn it all.

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  5. I've got a new post up on A Weather Moment blog this morning... Note that although I have joined forces with AWM, I will still be posting monthly summaries here.... but I will no longer post seasonal summaries as well as the thunderstorm season summaries which will now be reserved for the A Weather Moment blog. Forecasts here continue as per usual.

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  6. Rain looking a little less significant for today than what it looked like yesterday. Nonetheless, 1-4 mm still possible with scattered showers through the day. A greater chance for a more steadier rain tomorrow night.... but even with that, it looks like the bulk of the rain may stay to our south and east. A significant rainfall of 10+ mm possible around Emerson, Steinbach and the Whiteshell. 5-10 mm not out of the question for Winnipeg, but we may get even less if things really stay to our east... but overall a tricky forecast trying to work out all the variables in this generally really disorganised mess in the next few days.

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  7. Great article on A.W.M., Julien! I am looking foreword to your next "state of the climate" post.

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    1. Julien Your Monthly and Seasonal Weather summaries are the most intuitive and impressive of any I've seen. Out of the Blue last December 03 you produced a November weather summary that posted Winnipeg reaching its highest Barometric pressure reading ever recorded,\. The summary then compared it and other November records to the Winters of 1978-79, 1995,96, 1996,97, and 2008,09. as often as 3 times . If that didn't prepare us for this winter I don't know what would. At the time I was unaware of any other prediction that linked the DJF to below normal temps and above normal Snow and Length. So good in fact it was picked up by other local Blogs (Robs & AWM)
      Where do those historical Pressure readings come from?

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    2. I haven't forgotten about looking into that subject between November high pressure and winter cold! Been concentrating on other additions and improvements in the last month. Since you seem interested, I'll try to gather some stats between November high pressure and winter cold in the next few days and will postpone some of the record book updates (which is fine so no worries, I've got lots of time).

      As for where the pressure data came from, I used both environment canada's climate archive and wunderground's archive for Winnipeg airport. On wunderground, they give the highest pressure reading recorded on each day of the month for each year so that simplified the stats search quite a bit.

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  8. What a headache this week is becoming! Barely any rain fell in the RRV yesterday. As for today, looks like we'll stay dry this morning, but some scattered showers are possible again this afternoon and evening. I think the chance is better than yesterday, but it is hard to say how much will fall. Anywhere from 1 to 5 mm could fall.

    I'm still quite undecided what will happen tomorrow. I think we've got a pretty good chance for more rain as the Colorado Low to our south begins moving into Minnesota. Anywhere between 5-10 mm seems possible, but not a guarantee by any means. Will have to watch the next few model runs to see if things move around some more.

    Now, we've finally got some nice weather to look foreward to! Fairly sunny skies return on Friday along with more seasonal temperatures. We -should- manage to reach around 16 to 17°C which would be our warmest so far this year. Even warmer air moves in on Saturday with the potential for our first 20°C of the year - and yes I'm not kidding. Either way we will be quite close to 20°C assuming we get sufficient sunshine.

    Enjoy it while it lasts because it appears below normal conditions may return next week. In fact, long range models are giving very high chances of a general below normal trend continuing for the next couple weeks.

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  9. Even though it appears that we may be back into below normal temps next week and perhaps beyond, I don't think it will be nearly as bad as it has been thus far this year, at least I hope not. Until then enjoy the much anticipated warm weekend coming up.

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  10. Seems that the summer outlook by accuweather is a hot topic today in weather news. I'm not a fan of seasonal forecasts at all, but my personal take on their outlook is that I'd agree with their thoughts of a greater than normal chance of a colder than normal summer. Statistically, this is most likely after the type of year we've had so far as I've stated in my April summary. I'll reiterate what I had said in case anyone may have forgotten:

    *This past December to April period tied for 10th coldest since 1872. Of the top 15 coldest December to April periods, only 3 (20%) were followed by a summer (June-July-August) that was warmer than the 1872-2013 average summer mean of 18.2°C. Even worse, only 2 (13%) were warmer than today's normal summer mean of 18.4°C. However, big pattern changes have occurred in the past! 1936 was one of them when a 10th coldest December to April period was followed by a 10th warmest summer and hottest July ever in southern Manitoba. * However of note, in 1936 May was quite warm, certainly a different story from this year.

    However, I'm sure there will be some hotter periods this summer even if we do average below normal.

    In their outlook, accuweather also stated that the storm season will be tamer than usual around here. I'd be careful with that because thunderstorms are much more difficult to predict that far away. What I mean is that all it takes is a few surges of warm humid weather to produce some pretty severe thunderstorms. So I wouldn't be too dissapointed yet!

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  11. A good 3-4 mm so far this afternoon, another 2-4 mm not out of the question before the rain ends this evening. The thunderstorms are not too far with severe storms in central Minnesota this afternoon with large hail and heavy rains reported. Rumble of thunder can't be ruled out in the Sprague area in the next few hours as well.

    There's more and more consensus that rain will be pushing into southern Manitoba again tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow night, but now the question is how far west things will push. There's potential for significant rainfall (10+ mm) with this. Winnipeg could end up right on the edge of this system based on the latest model runs... We'll see how things trend...

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    1. I tjink every colorado is like this.. Winnipeg is always on the edge of the system and thus it is verry hard to forecast how precipitation we get.

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    2. You're absolutely right.... Can't remember the last time a forecast was clear-cut with these systems for Winnipeg.

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  12. This is starting too look like 2009 where summer finally arrived only in September.

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  13. I find it incredibly unreal how we just can't get rid of these intense cold blasts this year. Forget about those forecast highs in the teens for Monday and Tuesday. Most ensemble model guidance is showing some very cold air much of next week particularly Tuesday in which Euro is calling for a high of only +2 with some wet snow. When will it ever end...the answer to that is probably never in 2014.

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  14. Managed to pick up a good 3.5 mm here in south end last night; 5.5 mm at the airport.

    Consensus at this point is for a miss for Winnipeg with tonight's rainfall with just a few showers possible. Could still change, but I am leaning towards this miss at this point.

    Sun finally makes a full appearance tomorrow.... Should see temperatures rise to 15-16°C, still a degree or two below normal. Even warmer air moves in Saturday as mentioned before and we should rise to 19-20°C. Of course, this is assuming we get decent sunshine. With a weak system moving in Saturday night, hopefully the cloud can hold off until late in the day.

    Well below normal temperatures return for the work week next week..... 1981-2010 normal highs for the week range between 16 and 19°C.

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  15. How below normal for next week?

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    1. Generally, 5-10°C below normal is what I'm expecting for at least some of the days. Can't rule out one or two days only reaching high single digits, but it's a little early to say for sure.

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  16. Let's just say that the day 6-7 EC forecast looks much more favourable than what it actually will be. I'm guessing some 10-15 degrees below normal with chance of flurries early next week.

    January or May, it doesn't matter. We can still find a way to be 10-15 degrees below normal. Anyone know what the current record is for below normal temps ie 10 months, 15 months?

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    1. That's something that I will have to look into... I thought I heard somewhere a few years ago that it was around 11 consecutive months or so in the late 1800's but I could be wrong.

      We had a 9 month below normal streak in 2009, which was the longest below normal streak since 1949/1950, according to Rob's post in 2009: http://robsobsblog.blogspot.ca/2009/09/cool-august-ends-6th-coolest-summer-on.html

      Again, this is something I'm going to have to look into further for the official records.

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    2. Kind of a difficult question to answer because you need to define what "normal" is. Generally we use 30 year monthly averages to define "normal", which are updated at the start of each new decade (currently we're using 1981-2010 normals) . But is it justified to use modern day normals to look at data from the late 1800s which was in a cool cycle? Alternately, you can use the entire 1872-2013 period to calculate monthly "normals', but again.. the late 1800s had a notable cold bias.

      That being said, using reasonable monthly averages for Winnipeg, it looks like the period from Nov 1881 - Oct 1884 was an exceptionally prolonged period of colder than normal weather here, with a phenomenal 35 out of 36 months below normal in that period. June 1883 ended a 19 month streak below normal, only to followed by another 16 month streak below normal (no doubt prolonged by the eruption of Krakatoa in August 1883) Will be interested to see if JJ comes up with similar numbers..

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    3. Thanks for your thoughts Rob. I was planning to compare each year with the previous 30 year average/normal. So for example, for 1934 let's say, I would compare with the 1904-1933 average/normal. However, for 1890 for example I would compare with the 1872-1901 average/normal. Might take a while to collect these stats, just need to figure out what would be the fastest way right now.

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    4. An exceptionally detailed description of the cold and the final ending blizzard "" to this era was written recently (2009) "With a Bang not a Whimper" about the Little Ice Age (of the upper midwest plains) The introduction first paragraph
      At the end of one of his many famous poems, “The Hollow Men,” the 20th century poet
      T. S. Eliot, in what was a probable reference to our civilization, said that the world would
      end not with a bang but with a whimper. Maybe. But this could not be said about the
      winter of 1887-1888, a notably frigid and stormy season, the last in a series of
      consecutive and devastating Upper Midwest winters, a series which has since been
      labeled “The Little Ice Age of the 1880's”. This was a climatological interlude that, most
      emphatically, ended not with a whimper but with a bang, a very loud bang indeed.
      by Thomas St. Martin with a number of quotes from the Childrens blizzard by Lasky

      another quote from the introduction.. ."
      Given the fact that brutal winters occur with disconcerting frequency in the Upper
      Midwest, the winter of 1887-88, although it marked the end of the Little Ice Age, was not,
      however, followed by an unbroken series of warm winters. Since that fateful season (i.e.
      1887-88), the area continued to experience intermittent episodes of severe winter
      weather, one of the worst of which was the winter of 1935-1936. Nor was the winter of
      1887-88 without parallel during the years prior to the onset of the Little Ice Age (e.g.
      winters at least as severe and as memorable as any of the winters of the 1880's occurred
      in 1842-1843, 1856-1857 and 1874-1875). The distinguishing feature of the winter of
      1887-88, then, was not its extreme cold as such or even the blizzard of January 1888 (the
      disastrous impact of which was, in part, attributable more to the fact that the area
      involved was more densely settled/developed than it was when hit by earlier blizzards of
      comparable intensity and unpredictability). The last months of 1887and the first months
      of 1888 are unique , rather, because, as noted, they marked the end of an unbroken six
      year reign of abnormally cold, miserable and ruinous winter weather. "
      Don

      Given this intro about the area just 100K south if Winnipeg I too wonder .

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