Forecast: Weather outlook not quite so mild

Issued January 23, 2017 – Covering the period from January 25 to February 1, 2017

As has been fairly typical over the last year or so, the warm air came in as expected and ended up being even warmer than what the weather models predicted. Last week’s heat broke several recorded highs along with even more “record high” overnight lows. For this forecast period, it looks to remain mild, but

Forecast: Very warm pattern setting up

Issued January 16, 2017 – Covering the period from January 18 to January 25, 2017

The warm weather arrived as forecast, with mild Pacific air finally pushing out the cold arctic air. This mild air looks to stick around for at least this forecast period. The big question is whether we’ll see more significant precipitation. This forecast period begins with high pressure dominating much of Western and Central Canada and


Forecast: Is a winter heat wave moving in?

Issued January 9, 2017 – Covering the period from January 11 to January 18, 2017

It seems we are moving into a pattern of cold and settled weather, interspersed with periods of warm and active weather. The current medium-range forecast looks to support this. This forecast period will begin on the cold side as an area of arctic high pressure builds southward behind a Colorado low that passed by to

A lot of severe summer weather in 2016

A lot of severe summer weather in 2016

Manitoba, in an unusual twist, topped Alberta for the number of severe hail events in 2016

With the beginning of a new year comes the usual list of top 10 things about the previous year, and in the category of weather, this really appears to be the case. There are the top 10 Prairie weather stories, top 10 Canadian weather stories, and the top 10 world weather stories, which often tend


Forecast: Typical mid-winter weather

Issued December 31, 2016 – Covering the period from January 4 to January 11, 2017

After a fairly active last week of December, it looks as though January will start off on the quiet side. High pressure looks to dominate our weather pattern over the next week or two, with the main storm track expected to stay to our south. A ridge of arctic high pressure is forecast to slowly

A very wet canola field in St. Andrews, Man. this past July.

A warm and relatively wet 2016

November was the hottest month compared to average, breaking some records in Manitoba

I know the year isn’t quite done yet, but I really want to take a look back and see just how the numbers turned out for our weather across the Prairies this year. I figure the best way to do this is to look back month by month, then do an overall summary of the


Forecast: Battle between warm and cold setting up

Issued December 19, 2016 – Covering the period from December 21 to December 28, 2016

Our nine days of brutally cold air have ended; that’s right, this little cold snap was only nine days long, but from what I was hearing, you’d think it was the entire month! The lobe of cold arctic air that brought the cold weather has finally weakened and moved off to the east, allowing the

The sun sets over frozen prairie fields near Rosser, Manitoba as temperatures dip below -30 degrees Celsius in mid-December.

Christmases have been relatively storm-free

In a contest for the coldest-ever Christmas Eve on the Prairies, Winnipeg would win

The holiday season is about traditions, and with Christmas and the holiday season just around the corner it’s time once again to do my traditional look at Christmas weather across the Prairies — in particular, a look back to see what the warmest and coldest Christmases were, and to see if there have ever been


Forecast: Arctic high pressure to dominate

Issued December 12, 2016 – Covering the period from December 14 to December 21, 2016

We definitely have switched into winter, with most areas seeing a dramatic switch last week as the predicted snowstorm hit, ending our record warm spell. The weather pattern looks to be quiet across our region for this forecast period as cold arctic high pressure dominates our weather, but we will have to keep a cautious eye on

December’s weather outlook? Cold

December’s weather outlook? Cold

A good portion of the record-level heating we saw in November took place during the night

Well, it’s now official. November 2016 has gone down in the record books as the warmest month on record across much of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In the last issue I pointed out we should easily beat the record, and we did exactly that. In fact, we didn’t just break the record for the warmest November