Weather happenings around the world

Ithought I would take a break from our look at severe summer weather and take a little bit of time to hit on a few other weather stories that have been taking place locally and around the world. First of all, for us, comes the biggest weather story: what the heck is going on with

Average spring weather

This forecast period will start with us seeing a predominantly westerly flow. To our north there will be an area of high pressure, while to our south we’ll see several weak areas of low pressure moving by within the westerly flow. This makes the first part of the forecast period a little tough to figure


How ice loss influences the jet stream

I’ve spent a fair bit of time discussing the record warm weather we experienced in March over the last few weeks. We’ve looked at just what led to this remarkable weather and we discussed just how intense it really was. The fact that we saw temperatures that were between three and four standard deviations above

Semi-permanent highs and lows

By the time you read this article it will already be February and you will probably be expecting the usual monthly weather summary and looking forward to seeing what the long-range forecasts call for in the next month. Unfortunately, because I write these articles in advance to meet publishing deadlines, the long-range outlook will have


A positive oscillation and record-setting warmth

Iknow in the last issue I said I’d do a recap of last year’s weather both local and globally, but sometimes Mother Nature has her own ideas and I have no choice but to follow her lead. So you’ll have to wait another week or two for the recap of last year’s weather. The main

Forecast – for Aug. 4, 2011

For this forecast period it appears we’ll stay in the same general weather pattern that we’ve been in now for over a month. With this pattern we see weak upper-level ridging in place, while at the surface, weak areas of low pressure form to our west and track either well to our north or to


What’s Up With All The Rain?

How does the saying/ song go? “Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.” I think for a lot of people across at least the southern third of the Prairies, “another day” could be a month from now. Farther north, conditions are almost the exact opposite. Months of dry weather have left things extremely dry.

Long Waves And Blocking Patterns

If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute.” This is probably one of the most used and often true statements made about the weather in our part of the world. We live in the zone that stretches right around the globe, where warm air moving northward battles it out with cold air surging


Forecast – for Oct. 14, 2010

Last week’s forecast turned out to be pretty good. If anything, the weather ended up being even nicer than we thought it might be. Temperatures over the long weekend were above the long-term average and the only part of the forecast which was off a bit was that the area of low pressure forecast for

Taking A Look At La Niña – for Sep. 16, 2010

As summer comes to an end the most common question I have received is about what we should expect the coming winter to be like. Long-range forecasting is tough at the best of times, and most forecasts beyond 30 days are usually not more statistically correct than simply doing a coin toss, but – there