Forecast: Fair confidence in drier weather prediction

Issued July 25, 2016 – Covering the period from July 27 to August 3, 2016

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Published: July 29, 2016

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This map shows the total amount of precipitation that has fallen across the Prairies so far this growing season compared to historical amounts. The wet weather over the last month or so has pushed a large portion of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and to a lesser extent Alberta, into the very-high to extremely high range, with a few locations reporting record wetness.

Last week’s forecast played out pretty close to what was expected, with a couple of small issues. Well, one small issue and one big issue. First of all the small issue — the system that affected our region over the weekend was a little slower than expected. The big issue was that all of the models missed out on the heavy thunderstorms that hit a large portion of our region Wednesday evening.

For this forecast period I think for the first time in a while I am fairly confident that we should not see any significant rain. I won’t go as far as saying we won’t see any rain, but it’s looking pretty warm and dry. It looks like the pattern will set up with high pressure dominating to our north and east for most of this week and next week. This should keep any of the active weather to our south over South and North Dakota.

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The northern high looks to dominate from Wednesday to Friday, bringing sunny skies and warm temperatures. Extreme southern regions might see some clouds and maybe catch the edge of a thunderstorm late on Friday, as storms fire up over the Dakotas. Over the weekend, low pressure is forecasted to develop to our northwest and then move across the northern Prairies on Sunday and Monday. Currently, it looks like most of the precipitation will be well to our north with this low, but a trailing cold front late on Sunday or during the day Monday may trigger the odd scattered thunderstorm.

Temperatures look to continue to be mild ahead of this system, with highs expected to be in the upper 20s and overnight lows in the mid-teens.

High pressure will build back in by Tuesday which will bring with it plenty of sunshine and slightly cooler temperatures. This high looks to affect our region until at least Thursday or Friday and under the midsummer sunshine we should expect to see temperatures warm back into the upper 20s to low 30s for highs.

Usual Temperature Range for this Period: Highs: 23 to 31 C Lows: 13 to 18 C

About the author

Daniel Bezte

Daniel Bezte

Co-operator contributor

Daniel Bezte is a teacher by profession with a BA (Hon.) in geography, specializing in climatology, from the U of W. He operates a computerized weather station near Birds Hill Park.

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