At 4.2°C below normal, April was the 5th consecutive month averaging more than 3.5°C colder than normal and the 7th consecutive month averaging below normal.
With an average mean temperature of -13.1°C so far this year, this has been the 15th coldest first third of the year on record since 1873, tying with 1996. This also ties 4th coldest in the last century. If we include our frigid December into the equation, this December to April period ties with 1935/1936 as 10th coldest since 1872 with an average mean temperature of -14.7°C. In fact, one must go back 121 years to the winter of 1892/1893 to find a colder December to April period. Remarkable!
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| The melt |
Incredibly, we managed to escape all record lows in April. Really, about the closest we got to breaking a record was on April 14 when we reached a high of -6.4°C. It was the 2nd coldest high on April 14 on record, just shy of the coldest in 1880 when we only reached -7.8°C.
Snow was another story in April. We started the month with 43 cm of remaining winter snow pack, the 3rd deepest winter snow pack on record coming into April. In fact, the winter snow pack did not disappear until April 21, the 8th latest on record since 1955. Even more impressive, it did not reach a trace cm until April 19, tying 3rd latest. Note that this follows the latest date to do so last year:
Table: Top 10 latest dates for winter snow pack to reach a trace cm
Rank
|
Date winter
snow pack reached trace cm
|
Year(s)
|
1
|
April 27
|
2013
|
2
|
April 26
|
1997
|
3
|
April 19
|
1979, 1996 &
2014
|
6
|
April 18
|
1962
|
7
|
April 16
|
1956 & 1974
|
9
|
April 14
|
1970
|
10
|
April 13
|
2009
|
Finally, for those hoping for more consistent above normal weather soon, again the odds are against us looking at past history. 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.
A beauty of a day today if you don't include the wind... Should manage to reach about 13 to 15°C by late afternoon.
ReplyDeleteFirst wave of rain comes later this evening into the overnight. A good 3-6 mm possible.
More cloud than sun tomorrow with our second wave of rain possible in the evening and overnight again. Another 1-3 mm possible, perhaps a bit more if it ends up being heavy at times. A rumble of thunder or two may occur in southwestern Manitoba in the afternoon and early evening if they can get enough sunshine. Nonetheless, not a very significant chance. Not expecting any in the RRV however.
I see E.C.'s Website is down. Wonder how long that will last.
ReplyDeleteMust have been brief because I haven't had any problems with their website today.
DeleteI love your new slidelow tab! Great photos, and great music. Where have learned to take such wonderful weather photos. My only question is what happened to the section of blog posts about educational weather? Did'nt get a chance to read them all. THe one about windchill is verry interesting. I also hate it when the radio/ tv says the windchill instead of of the real temp as the tempurture!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anon
Thanks.. And I just redid many of those photos with photoshop, so a lot of those photos looked pretty dull in reality. They were just taken with a digital camera so I don't have any special tricks!
DeleteNever really had the chance to post anything educational so I took it away.. but there is a dropdown menu on the right sidebar named ''educative''. Note that I linked the wind chill subject to Brad's post on AWM because it was much more detailed than the one I had.
Yeah it was brief, I checked the website and could not get into it then 10 minutes later it was working.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is very mind boggling and sounds like broken record but still no signs of a change to a warmer pattern for at least the next 2 to 3 weeks. We had tremendous weather is 2012 but have really paid the price for it ever since. When you go back to October 2012 you can say we've been below normal for about 98% of the time since then and in most cases well below normal. It's very shocking however just how consistently well below normal we've been the past several months. Sooner or later you gotta think a change is coming, right. Ironic that the only way a change may be forthcoming is with the upcoming El Nino later this year. Let's hope a change happens before that though.
ReplyDeletePaying a price is right! We've only had 3 above normal months since October 2012 (3 out of 19 months (16%))... yet the most above normal was last September with ''only'' a +2.5°C anomaly. However, I have to agree with what Rob was talking about on his blog - when we turn the corner, it could be quite significant.
DeleteYeah, let's hope so, we deserve it big time. Honestly to me it's not a matter of if we turn the corner, it's simply a matter of when. Let's hope it sooner rather than later.
ReplyDeleteThey say extreme weather events do some good. Floods are helpful in marshes and in some rivers such as the Colorado. However this extreme cold has left major lakes still mostly frozen such as the Great Lakes and lake Winnipeg.
ReplyDeleteJj Are there any redeeming qualities summerwise to these late spring frozen lakes?
Much of the rain overnight managed to dance around the city and thus we didn't get much. Only got 1.0 mm here in south St Vital; but 1.5 mm in Charleswood.
ReplyDeleteA fairly cloudy day for most of the day today. We may see some sunnier conditions later in the afternoon before our next chance for rain late evening and overnight. Doesn't look overly organised so it's difficult to give a specific rain amount forecast. Not much expected nonetheless.
With some decent sunshine and a bit of instability, some thunderstorms are likely in western and southwestern Manitoba this afternoon and evening. They will likely be weak with the main threat being heavy downpours.
There are already hints of a stronger system possible in the Wednesday-Thursday timeframe with another heavy rainfall possible thanks to another Colorado Low to our south. Still uncertain about how far north the rain will go so not a guarantee yet.
According to T.W.N., an el ninna is set to develop this fall/early winter. Any thoughts, JJ?
ReplyDeleteThanks, ANON
It's actually an el niño that is forecast.. but according to noaa it's still uncertain at this time how strong it will become. Depending on how strong it is, there definitely could be significant impacts on our next winter. Strong el niños are known to bring more comfortable winters here, warmer and less snow (not always, but typically yes). For instance, 1997/98, 1986/87, 1991/92 and 1982/83 were all significant el niño winters that all featured a top 10 warmest winter in Winnipeg. Note that el niño records only go back to 1950 I believe (at least, that's as far as I could find).
DeleteHere's a few reads that might interest you:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.pdf
http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/forecast.html
And anyone here interested in an ENSO archive, one is available here:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
Some more interesting reads:
Deletehttp://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=fgf&storyid=101922&source=0
http://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/slow-slosh-warm-water-across-pacific-hints-el-ni%C3%B1o-brewing
One last blustery day with winds of 30 to 40 km/h today from the north again. Also fairly cloudy, but some sunny breaks at times. Wont rise much with a high around 7 or 8°C. Light winds tomorrow and a couple degrees warmer.
ReplyDeletePotential is still there for another big rain event Wednesday-Thursday with a Colorado Low to our south.
Hi JJ,
ReplyDeleteI was looking at some your winter temps from your st. Vital data site, and remembering that you had said that your winter temps where often to warm... Well, turns out I have the same problem with my Nextech weather station. There are two reasons that I thought May have caused it: 1. My station is not mounted, and thus is not on top of any snow cover ( it is actually on my front porch); And 2. My station gets a lot of morning sunlight when the temp is coldest, wich heats up the thermometer. I plan to fix these problems this spring, and I'll see if that works... if ithat dose not help, then I will likely purchase a knew one.
Let me know in your reply if you have your weather station in any of the above spots, and let me know what kind you have...
Hopefully both our problems are fixed by next winter :-)!
Thanks, Leon
Mine is called ''thermor''. It can't connect to a computer, but it is automatic in the sense that it gives the low and high temperature recorded which I have to note down everyday.
DeleteI honestly have no idea what is the problem; I'm not sure why my readings are so warm in the winter.... BUT what I've noticed now this winter is that this problem tends to occur mainly when there is a snow pack. In the middle of winter, when it's -35°C at the airport, my station could be giving something around -24°C. I have a regular ''normal'' manual thermometer on the window nearby and it would give, for example, a reading of about -30°C at the same time which is more reasonable. In contrast, on cold nights in the spring and fall when there is no snow pack I tend to get a reading that is similar or colder than the airport's...
Whenever I can, I'll check my ''normal'' thermometer once and a while to get an estimate which I'll mark down (luckily that window doesn't get much sunlight at any time of the year). But, it's not always possible to look at the thermometer at the exact time when it was coldest, so I don't get to have much accurate data in the winter.
Is your station positioned on top of snowpack? Maybe, for the snowpack to have its full effect, you need a verry large snow covered area, becuase the wind could easily blow warmer air from a snow-free pavemented area into a colder snow covered area; it could also happen reverse. If that theory's correct then - at least for me - it may well be the problem as my house is just south east of a large parking lot and mall, how about yours? Although I may be wrong on this, it's a possibility.
DeleteThanks, Leon
No, it is raised a good couple metres above the ground.
DeleteThe potential for a big rain event still exists for midweek as another large colorado low sets shop just to our south. It looks like there may be a fair amount of instability with this system which could also lead to some thunderstorms across Southern Manitoba with the potential for heavy rain. I'm also thinking that Friday may potentially be our warmest day of the year under the dry slot leading to a sunnier day, so we'll see. Note that some of of the current forecasted temps for the coming week may also be somewhat underdone at the moment given that the upper flow pattern is expected to switch to a more zonal or a southwest flow by Tuesday. Either way still not the warm sunny weather we want and deserve.
ReplyDeleteBut then true that we may see warmer temps than currently forecasted over the coming week if we see sunshine at anytime during those days. At this point i'm not so sure that the entire week is a complete washout like some forecasts are suggesting at the moment.
ReplyDeleteAnd looking at the models, while the GEM may have 27 MM (which is'nt even rainfall warning criteria), the GFS only has 11 MM. Personally I hope we get a good soaking to great the garden going, but it could easily turn out like last Monday: a couple of days before it was anticipated that we would get 20-50 MM, with as much as 100 possible in parts. Of SK - yet in the end it turned out winnipeg only recived 1O-15 MM - what a bust of a forecast!
DeleteAgreed, high teens seem reasonable late week into next weekend based on the latest expectations. You'd think we should manage to get at least one or two sunnier days... Sad thing is that high teens is only normal now so we're still behind schedule.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, just getting an extended period of normal days would be nice. Forgot we live in winnipeg, that's impossible.
DeleteNormal is better than nothing these days. We can't even get that in 2014.
ReplyDeleteHi JJC,
ReplyDeleteLooking at the radar, it looks like some rain is flooding in from the south west. When do you think it'll start raining here in Winnipeg, and how much might fall?
Thanks,
Jeff
Much of it is expected to dissipate as it moves more eastward as well as slide down southeastward south of the border. Other than a few sprinkles or snowflakes, don't think we're in for much precipitation tonight.
DeleteLooks like thunderstorms may be possible in Southern Manitoba as some point this week, particularly in Tuesday-Thursday timeframe.
ReplyDeleteA few weak thunderstorms are possible in southwestern Manitoba late in the day tomorrow... otherwise yes a few rumbles of thunder are possible Tuesday across southern Manitoba, but it will be isolated. I think the chance for Winnipeg is quite low.
Delete