Cool & Quiet; Light Snow To End the Week?

Brad Leave a comment

We’ll stay the course with cool, benign weather through the remainder of the week as weather systems stay well to our north and south.

Wednesday

1°C / -8°C
Cool; mixed skies.
Thursday

1°C / -7°C
Mainly sunny.
Friday

1°C / -5°C
Cloudy; chance of snow in the afternoon.

Today and tomorrow with both bring a high near 1°C, albeit with mixed skies today and mainly sunny skies tomorrow.  Tonight and tomorrow will both drop down into the low minus single digits.

Friday will bring the next chance for snow to our area as a low pressure system pushes across the Southern Prairies.  Skies will cloud up early in the morning and temperatures will climb to 1 or 2°C.  By the afternoon, the chance for some light snow will push into Winnipeg and the Red River Valley.  The chance for light snow looks to last through Friday night and into Saturday morning, perhaps even into Saturday afternoon.  The snow potential for Friday and Friday night looks the best with the chance for some stronger bands, while on Saturday it seems like there’s just a slight risk for some light flurry activity.  That being said, it still only looks like perhaps a cm or two at most would fall over the region, if any at all.

The main uncertainty with the snow for Friday centres around the fact that as the system approaches Southern Manitoba, a second low is forecast to develop through the Dakotas which will consolidate the heavier snow down towards it. At this point, it looks like the heaviest snowfall (perhaps as much as 1-1.5 inches) will fall through North Dakota. If the Dakota low ends up tracking a little further north, it’s possible that we’ll see some accumulating snowfall in areas close to the US border. We’ll keep an eye on this system and have an in depth look in Friday’s post.

After that things look like we’ll be settling back into a benign pattern with little activity expected until mid-week and cool temperatures with highs near 0°C.

Cool and Calm

Brad Leave a comment

The weather this week will be cool and calm, meaning no big weather makers are in the forecast.

Early Week

Monday

Mix of Sun and Cloud. Slight Chance of Flurries.
4°C / -1°C
Tuesday

Mainly Cloudy
2°C / -8°C
Wednesday

Mainly Sunny
0°C / -8°C

Monday will be a seasonably warm day in Southern Manitoba. A cold front will pass through in the morning, causing the wind to shift to westerly. Temperatures will be in the low to mid single digits.

Tuesday should see seasonable conditions continue in Southern Manitoba. Temperatures will be in the low single digits with a light westerly wind.

Wednesday will be very similar to Tuesday, with temperatures once again in the low single digits and winds being light.

Long Range

The long-range forecast looks to feature mostly seasonal weather. However, we’ll likely see our first snowfall of this fall at some point in the next 5-10 days. It probably won’t be a significant snowfall, but a snowfall nonetheless.

Elsewhere in Weather News: November 2nd, 2013

Matthieu Leave a comment

Strong Mid-Latitude Cyclone Whips Europe

An extremely powerful mid-latitude cyclone sitting off the coast of Scotland affected parts of Europe such as England, Denmark and Germany early last week. Winds were the main threat associated with this storm as gusts reached just below 200km/h in Denmark. The reason why this storm was not classified as a hurricane, even though it had hurricane strength winds, is because hurricanes have a warm core and do not have well defined fronts like low pressures systems do. Here, a mid latitude cyclone was the case as fronts were well defined and other various characteristics did not match one of a hurricane.


A house in Germany was completely destroyed by winds gusting over 100km/h this past week. (Souce: Christiane Boose)
A house in Germany was completely destroyed by winds gusting over 100km/h this past week. (Souce: Christiane Boose)

In total, 15 people died from this storm, most due to falling trees. This storm left about 500,000 people without power as trees snapped like twigs and fell on power lines. Off France’s coast waves as high as 5-6m were reported and about 1,300 flights were grounded because of the strong winds.

These very powerful low pressure systems are not unheard of for Europe, though storms with gusts of this intensity do not occur on a yearly basis. This low has since moved off into Russia and is no longer affecting the region. Gusty conditions are expected to return to the UK this weekend as an active pattern, which is not out of the usual for this time of the year, continues.

In other weather news, an unusually strong typhoon (Krosa) has spun up and as of Friday night was of category three intensity. Conditions are not particularly favourable for further development in the South China Sea and the typhoon should gradually weaken as it drifts towards Vietnam.

Snow-Free Start to November

Brad Leave a comment

While we mentioned the likelihood for snow or rain for today on Wednesday, things have changed thanks to a stronger-than-expected Colorado Low hitting Southern Ontario. The intensity of this system has amplified the jet stream and as a result the precipitation once expected over the Red River Valley will slide to our southwest. How will the rest of the weekend fare? Read on to find out!

Friday

6°C / -4°C
A few clouds.
Saturday

6°C / -5°C
Mainly sunny.
Sunday

7°C / 2°C
Becoming mainly cloudy. Chance of late-day showers.

We’ll see very pleasant days today and tomorrow as clouds stay mostly out of the way and we enjoy slightly above normal temperatures1 with daytime highs both days around 6°C. There will be a little more cloud today than there will be tomorrow, but it shouldn’t put a damper on either day. Overnight lows will continue to be seasonal around -5°C.

Sunday will herald the approach of the Next Big System™ to the Prairies. A low pressure system pushing out of Southern Alberta will spread cloud eastwards into Southern Manitoba through the day. While we may start off seeing the sun, by midday we should be mostly cloudy and by the late afternoon we’ll likely be completely overcast. There may be a slight chance of some isolated shower activity by late afternoon into the evening hours, however that threat would be confined strictly to areas along and north of the Trans-Canada Highway.

12hr. accumulated precipitation (liquid-eqivalent) for Sunday night.
12hr. accumulated precipitation (liquid-eqivalent) for Sunday night.

Rain showers are likely overnight into Monday morning, but no significant accumulations are expected as the bulk of the precipitation remains through the Interlake. By Monday afternoon all precipitation should have lifted north out of the Red River Valley. While this system looks like it has the potential to deliver a decent amount of snow to the Central Prairies, it looks like it will be a relative non-event here in the Red River Valley.

Things mixed for a day or two before another system tracks into Southern Manitoba mid-week.

  1. Average temperatures for the beginning of November in Winnipeg sit around 4°C. ↩