Forecast: Nice winter weather expected

Issued January 22, 2018: Covering the period from January 24 to January 31

The first half of last week’s forecast was pretty good as mild Pacific air flooded in from the west and northwest, bringing near-record to record highs across much of southern and central Manitoba. The forecast area of low pressure that was expected to track through the Dakotas last Monday ended up tracking much farther south.

The swollen Red River engulfs farmyards in this aerial file photo. River floods will be a growing risk as the climate warms, scientists say.

Warming will put millions more at flood risk

The risks are greatest where governments lack the funds to improve infrastructure

Thomson Reuters Foundation – Unless countries urgently boost their flood defences, millions more people will be at risk from river flooding in the next 20 years. Scientists say as global warming increases, so will the likelihood of severe rainfall. In Asia, the numbers at risk will more than double to 156 million, up from 70


Forecast: Milder weather, with a chance of snow

Issued January 15, 2018: Covering the period from January 17 to January 24

Once again, the weather models have done a fairly good job of predicting the big picture, but just like in the last forecast period, they struggled with the details. We saw this last weekend as the weather models totally missed out on a weak system moving through ahead of the next arctic high. This system

Forecast: Cold weather moves back in

Issued January 8, 2018: Covering the period from January 13 to January 20

The weather models have been doing a fairly good job of predicting the big picture, but are struggling a little with the details. We saw this over the weekend as air much warmer than anticipated moved in on Sunday and ended up sticking around for an extra day or two before the arctic air returned.


Forecast: Weather pattern trying to switch back to mild

Issued January 3, 2018: Covering the period from January 3 to January 10

The Christmas forecast played out pretty close to what the weather models predicted, as cold weather moved in over the holidays. The one big difference was just how cold it ended up getting, with some areas seeing overnight lows drop into the mid -30s C. For this forecast period it looks like the very cold

Forecast: Cold weather moving in for Christmas

Issued December 18, 2017: Covering the period from December 20 to December 27

The predicted switch in our weather pattern began to materialize over the last forecast period as the West Coast ridge began to break down. Over this forecast period it’s looking like we’ll begin to feel the effects of the switch as colder air builds into the region. To start off this forecast period, there will


Forecast: Seasonably mild with a chance of snow

Issued December 11, 2017: Covering the period from December 13 to December 20

The weather models continue to struggle with the finer details of the overall weather pattern. Take last week’s forecast: the weather models were able to correctly predict the development of the West Coast ridge along with the broad trough of low pressure across the eastern half of North America; what they struggled with was the

Forecast: Seasonably cold and dry weather ahead

Issued December 4, 2017: Covering the period from December 6 to December 13

If you have been regularly checking out the weather models over the last couple of weeks you would have noticed they have been having a hard time nailing things down. One model run shows a large storm system, then 12 hours later the next model run has no storm system at all; two days later


Forecast: Mild weather to continue

Issued November 27, 2017: Covering the period from November 29 to December 6

Last week’s forecast played out pretty close to what the weather models predicted, with the exception of the possible major winter storm that the models were hinting at for late this week. It seems, according to the weather models, that we are heading into a fairly quiet weather pattern over the next week or two,

Despite El Niño coming to an end earlier this year, the globe still appears to be running a temperature.

Warm global temperatures and La Niña

Usually La Niña means colder temperatures but this is a weak one

I figured it was time to review what has been going on with global temperatures over the last few months. Despite El Niño coming to an end earlier this year, the globe still appears to be running a temperature. September came in as the fourth-warmest September on record according to both NOAA and NASA, while