Over the holiday season, combined with COVID restrictions limiting our holiday plans, some of you may have had some extra time for reading and maybe a little surfing of the net. Over the years I’ve occasionally written about some of the websites I use to look up weather, create forecasts and read about what’s going
My favourite weather websites
Tropicaltidbits.com offers access to GFS, one of the primary forecasting models
Forecast: Not much snow expected
Covering the period from December 23 to December 30
Usually by this time of the year we have settled into a predictable winter pattern. This year, winter has been struggling to take hold and as a result, the overall weather pattern is remaining fairly unpredictable. It looks like the weather for this holiday season is going to bounce around from above average to below
What’s your perfect Christmas weather?
A white Christmas on the Prairies is a good bet
Every few years I like to revisit the topic of “perfect Christmas holiday weather.” As we head into this holiday season, with some areas worried about whether it will be a white or brown Christmas, I think it’s appropriate we revisit it again this year. As I went through the last couple of times I
Forecast: Trending back toward warm weather
Covering the period from December 16 to December 23
Last issue’s forecast wasn’t that great, which shouldn’t be too surprising, as every time the atmosphere undergoes a switch in patterns, things tend to be rather unpredictable. While the details of the forecast were off, the general pattern was on the mark, with the end of the extremely mild weather and the beginning of more
A look at snowfall days and snowfall events
Probabilities have a storm with over 30 cm of snow hitting Winnipeg about once every 10 years
A couple of articles ago I wrote about when we should normally expect winter to begin. With most areas seeing very little snow so far this year, I thought now might be a good time to look at snowfall probabilities. Just how much snow can we typically expect with each snowfall? Is the little snow
Forecast: Expect a shift in weather pattern
Covering the period from December 9 to December 16
It wasn’t surprising that the weather models did such a good job predicting last week’s early-winter heat wave. The models had been consistently showing this happening for a while and they are usually correct when it comes to large weather features like this. For this forecast period, it looks like the weather pattern is going
Forecast: Mild early-winter weather continues
Covering the period from December 2 to December 9
Once again, the weather models did a fairly good job forecasting the general weather pattern across our region over the last week. Whenever we are dealing with weak weather systems it can be tough to get the timing right, but in those instances, being off by 12 to 24 hours when there are only light
Warm, dry weather expected into December
Computer modelling suggests precipitation closer to average levels in January
What a difference a month can make. If you remember back to October, it was a cold and snowy, yet dry month. Temperatures across southern and central Manitoba averaged from 2.5 to 3.5 C below the long-term average, with precipitation also coming in well below average. Jump ahead 30 days and we have gone from
Weather school: How do jet streams form?
Jet streams form where we have sharp, or quick, changes in air temperatures
Before we get back into weather school, I feel I need to touch on a couple of weather topics. First, global temperatures for October are in, and this October came in as the fourth warmest on record, according to both NOAA and NASA, the third warmest by the European Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the
Forecast: Mild, with not much snow expected
Covering the period from November 25 to December 2
Despite not a lot of confidence in last issue’s forecast, the weather models actually did a pretty darned good job. We saw the mild temperatures early in the period followed by the slight cool-down. The models were then showing milder temperatures moving in for the first half of this week, with the chance of a