A Technical Look At Lightning

Iknow I mentioned in my last severe weather article that I would be doing a detailed discussion about tornadoes sometime soon, but that sometime is not this week. Instead, I’ve decided to look at a particular aspect of thunderstorms that everyone has seen, can be deadly but rarely is, and is probably one of the

Forecast – for Jul. 29, 2010

It is looking like the first half of this forecast period will be warm and unsettled. The weather models are showing several chances of showers and thunderstorms as a couple of small areas of low pressure move through our forecast region. The first of these lows is forecasted to move through around Friday with a


Issued: Monday, July 12, 2010 Covering: July 14 –July 21

This forecast period starts off with a rather strong upper-level low tracking across southern and central Manitoba. Fortunately for us, this low doesn’t look as though it will linger as they tended to do this spring; it should move out by Thursday. Thursday will see a mix of sun and clouds, with western areas seeing

Issued: Monday, June 28, 2010 Covering: June 30 –July 7

This forecast period starts off with fairly quiet nice summer weather, but it doesn’t look like we’ve rounded the corner just yet on the unsettled stormy weather we’ve been experiencing for the last couple of months. While temperatures look as if they will remain fairly mild, we will see clouds and the chance of thunderstorms


Issued: Monday, June 21, 2010 Covering: June 23 –June 30

While it looks like we might finally be done with large storm systems it doesn’t look like we will be done with rain. We have to remember June and July are our two wettest months, with most of the rain coming in the form of thundershowers and storms, and it looks like that’s what we’ll

Issued: Monday, June 14, 2010 Covering: June 16 –June 23

It looks like we’ll have to deal with one more storm system before more summerlike weather finally moves in. For those of you who wouldn’t mind seeing a little more rain during this forecast period, then this is the forecast for you. If you have had it up to about here with rain, then it’s


Hail And Thunderstorms

TABLE 1. Twelve largest recent Canadian hailstorms (losses in millions of dollars) Date Location Sept. 1991 Calgary 343 July 1987 Edmonton July 1996 July 1981 July 1996 July 1996 July 1998 July 1995 Aug. 1998 June 1995 Winnipeg Calgary Calgary Calgary Calgary Calgary Calgary Southern Alberta May 1987 Montreal July 1992 Calgary Insurance losses 148

Issued: Monday, May 17, 2010 Covering: May 19 –May 26

Summer-like conditions definitely won out over the possible cool, wet conditions for the first half of this forecast period. The warm, dry weather is the result of a split flow in the middle layers of the atmosphere. This is keeping any storm systems well to our north or just to our south. Combine this with


Early Thunderstorm Season?

The Weather Vane is prepared by Daniel Bezte, a teacher by profession with a B. A. (Hon.) in geography, specializing in climatology, from the University of Winnipeg. Daniel has taught university-level classes in climate and weather and currently operates a computerized weather station at his home near Birds Hill Park, on 10 acres he plans

Weekly weather map – for Oct. 8, 2009

This week’s map shows the total amount of precipitation that fell during September. Precipitation patterns reflect the two main rainfall events that occurred during the month. One event brought rain from the southwestern corner, northeastward toward the Interlake. The second event was the heavy thunderstorms over the south-central regions extending to the east.