Author: Brad

Brad lives in Winnipeg with his wife and two children and is the founder of A Weather Moment. He has loved weather from a very young age and has followed that passion through his life so far. He received a B.Sc. in Earth Sciences with Specialization in Atmospheric Sciences and is currently employed in the field of meteorology. You can find the author as WeatherInThePeg on Mastodon.

Clipper-Like System To Bring Snow, Threat of Freezing Rain, to Southern Manitoba

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A clipper-like system ejecting from the Rockies and set to race eastwards across the Prairies will merge with a low pressure system stalled over Southern Manitoba produce widespread snow over the region Wednesday night into Thursday morning.

Cloud cover will increase late this afternoon as the incoming low pushes into southern Manitoba, with an area of precipitation spreading eastwards across the region. Initial phases of precipitation will likely be rain or freeing rain before switching over to snow in the second half of the night. Temperatures will hover near the 0°C mark for much of the night, bottoming out at just –1 or –2°C.

Freezing Rain Potential for December 9-10, 2015
The best chance for some freezing rain tonight looks to run from the Parkland region of Manitoba, eastwards across the Interlake & Red River Valely towards the Ontario border. Freezing rain will be limited south of the international border.
Freezing rain potential exists, but overall it looks like actual amounts would be fairly limited, with just 1–2mm in the worst-hit areas. This will still be enough to make roads quite slippery, though, so if you’re driving tonight, be sure to take extra care.

Snowfall will be limited south of the Trans-Canada highway and likely more characterized by a passing band of snow, then a pause before wrap-around snow pushes in on the back-side of this system. Further north, somewhere near the Trans-Canada highway, a west to east band of snow will set up along the northern edge of the low track and will produce the most snow, with general amounts of 5–10cm expected. There will be the risk of amounts in the 10–20cm range for localized areas of upslope flow along the eastern slopes of the Riding Mountains.

AWM Storm-Total Snowfall Forecast valid December 10, 2015
A swath of 5-10cm of snow is expected across Southern Mantioba by the end of tomorrow afternoon.
The snow will continue falling through much of Thursday here in Winnipeg and the Red River Valley before tapering off in the evening. The snow will be accompanied by gusty northerly winds of 30 gusting 50km/h. Expect the winds to taper off and skies to clear on Thursday night with temperatures dropping to about –6°C.

Friday will be a relatively nice day, however we’ll be stuck between a low pressure system passing to our south and an Arctic ridge to our north. This will keep temperatures limited to around –3°C for a daytime high and bring a chance of some flurry activity through the afternoon as mixed skies develop over the region. Fortunately, winds won’t be too much of an issue. Clouds will likely hang around on Friday night as we head to a low near –7°C.

Long Range

While the cooler temperatures in the forecast may be disappointing to some who have been enjoying this stretch of incredible early-winter warmth, there’s not too much room for complaining as the overnight lows this week are just dipping towards what the normal daytime high is for this time of year.

There’s some uncertainty as to what the weekend will bring, but overall it should be a fairly quiet weekend with seasonal to slightly above seasonal temperatures. Little to no snow is expected.

NAEFS 8-14 Day Temperature Anomaly Forecast
The NAEFS is forecasting a return to above-seasonal temperatures in the 8-14 day time span.
Over the next week, no additional snow is expected, and again, above-seasonal temperatures are expected to build back into the region. The fresh snowpack that will develop after tonight’s snow will likely preclude significant stretches of above–0°C weather, but with daytime highs dropping by the day, it’s nice that the –30°C deep freeze isn’t anywhere to be seen.

Exceptional December Warmth Continues

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The warm weather bathing over southern Manitoba shows no end in sight as daytime highs above freezing will remain in place for the next week, absolutely rocketing past the seasonal high temperatures near -8°C.

The coming days will be dominated by a broad zonal flow over the southern Prairies that will maintain the unseasonal warmth over the region and continue to keep the Arctic air bottled up north. Mainly sunny skies over the coming days will help produce daytime highs near 3 or 4°C, some 10°C above normal for this time of year.  While we likely won’t be hitting record high temperatures—which range from +5-12°C for the coming days—this period of warmth is nonetheless remarkable for early December.

For the coming days, temperatures will remain at least 8°C above normal for this time of year.  The prolonged period of warmth will result in a gradual erosion of the snowpack over the majority of the Red River Valley.

MODIS (Aqua) True Colour Satellite for December 3, 2015
MODIS (Aqua) True Colour Satellite for December 3, 2015

With little-to-no snow in the forecast, there’s a decent chance that by the start of next week, there’s a lot more bare ground showing around the Winnipeg area.

Other than the warm temperatures, there’s little to talk about in the forecast.  Today will be a fairly windy day with southerlies increasing through the day to around 40-50 km/h this afternoon. Winds will subside tonight and remain relatively light through the weekend. Overnight lows will sit in the -2 to -4°C range.

Long-Range Outlook

Nothing but warmth.

CPC 8-14 Day Temperature Anomaly Forecast valid December 11-17, 2015
NAEFS 8-14 Day Temperature Anomaly Forecast valid December 12-19, 2015

Both the NAEFS and the CPC show very high probabilities of above-normal temperatures continuing through the coming week or two. Little-to-no precipitation is expected.

Enjoy the beautiful weather!

Beautiful Start to December Continues

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Beautiful Start to December Continues

A foggy start today will be the minor blip in what looks to be a beautiful second half of the week, and start to meteorological winter, as the mild weather shows no end in sight.

The forecast for the remainder of the work week is pretty straightforward: beautiful with warm and sunny weather.

This morning will be the one blip over the next few days as fog over the region gradually burns off. After that, we’ll see mainly sunny conditions over the coming days with temperatures slowly warming as a train of low pressure systems tracking across the Northern Prairies drag warmer air eastwards across the Prairies.

Winds will be calm today, however pick up through the remainder of the week. Thursday will see westerly winds around 20–30 km/h while Friday will see gusty southerlies at 30–40 km/h.

By Friday, daytime highs will be 10°C or more above seasonal values with the potential for substantial snow-melt through much of the Red River Valley.

Weekend Outlook & Beyond

The mild weather will continue into the weekend with daytime highs slightly above 0°C expected throughout much of the Red River Valley. Saturday will likely be the nicest day of the week with daytime highs of 2–4°C and some breezy westerlies. Sunday will be a bit cooler with lighter winds.

NAEFS 8-14 Day Temperature Anomaly Forecast valid December 10 to 17th, 2015
NAEFS 8-14 Day Temperature Anomaly Forecast valid December 10 to 17th, 2015

Looking further ahead, the NAEFS continues to remain very confident in above normal temperatures for the region. With no indication that the Polar Jet has any plans to shift further south, out of the Northern Prairies, it seems fairly safe to go with the NAEFS forecast. Early indications are that we can expect daytime highs next week in the range of –2°C to +2°C or so with little in the way of precipitation.

Seasonal Weather For The 2015 Grey Cup

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With the 2015 Grey Cup taking center stage in Winnipeg on Sunday, one of the most pertinent questions fans heading to the game must be—or should be—wondering is what do you wear to an outdoor event, in Winnipeg, at the end of November? Fortunately, while you’ll still need to bundle up a little bit, the weather will be far more pleasant this year than it has been in many Novembers past.

Heading into the weekend, we’ll see a traditional “transition back towards milder weather” day. This means a day of it feeling quite a bit worse than the basic forecast might imply. Although temperatures will climb to around the –6°C mark today, it will do so with a fairly unpleasant southerly wind blowing down the Red River Valley, likely to around 35–45km/h with gusts up to the 60km/h mark by early this afternoon. This will make it rather unpleasant outside and hide any benefit the warmer temperatures have. It is, however, the unfortunate necessity of bringing warmer weather into the Red River Valley with an Arctic high pressure system to our south.

Saturday will bring seasonal temperatures with highs around –5°C and much lighter winds. The fairly sunny skies will make it an all-around nice day for the end of November. Temperatures will dip to about –10°C overnight.

For Grey Cup Sunday, it looks like temperatures will sit around the seasonal mark of –5 with increasing cloud cover through the day. For kickoff at 5PM, the temperature should be around –4 to –5°C with a light southerly wind of 10–15km/h. The temperature will gradually fall through the remainder of the evening, but should stay within the –5°C to –9°C range. The wind will also taper off as the evening progresses. No snow is expected at this point.

Long Range

For the coming week, conditions look very nice for Southern Manitoba.

CPC 6-10 Day Temperature Anomaly Forecast
The CPC 6-10 day temperature anomaly forecast, valid for December 5 – 18, 2015

Warmer than seasonal temperatures are expected to spread across much of southern Canada, thanks to a combination of a positive cycle in the Arctic Oscillation (AO) as well as a high over low block that is expected to develop over the west coast of North America.

The positive cycle of the AO means that there is lower than normal pressure over the northern pole, which results, generally speaking, in stronger westerly winds through the higher latitudes. This works to “bottle up” the Arctic air and make it more difficult for it to spill southwards.

The high over low block that is expected to develop over the west cost of North America serves as a powerful “block” in the weather pattern. This feature will remain stationary for several days at a minimum, and will result in benign weather over the Prairies with little precipitation as any significant weather-producing systems are deflected far north or south of our region.

This means that we should expect, in general, seasonal to above seasonal temperatures, little precipitation, and very limited duration to any colder outbreaks should they occur.

  1. Clear skies could mean a daytime high of a degree or two warmer, while temperatures cool off more quickly in the evening.  ↩