Forecast: Building ridge to bring warm, dry weather

Issued April 25, 2016 – Covering the period from April 27 to May 2, 2016

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Published: April 28, 2016

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This map shows the total amount of precipitation that fell across the Prairies during the two weeks ending April 21, which covers the wet period that brought significant rains to much of eastern and central Manitoba. The wettest areas were found around Morden, where over 50 mm of rain were recorded. Farther west, warm, dry weather was reported; a large part of Saskatchewan and Alberta recorded little to no rainfall.

After being stuck in a fairly cool weather pattern for almost a month now, it looks like things are going to slowly start to transition into a new pattern.

This forecast period is going to begin a little cool but dry, and it looks more and more like it will finish off warm and dry. Before you get really annoyed with the cool northerly flow we’ve seen for the last little while, it’s been that flow keeping several large and wet storm systems to the south of our region. We’ll still be under the influence of cool high pressure to our north on Wednesday and Thursday, but under strong spring sunshine we should see highs make it into the low teens, with overnight lows around the 0 C mark.

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By the end of the week we’ll start to see a shift in our weather pattern. The area of high pressure to our north is forecasted to strengthen and shift eastward. At the same time the upper low sitting over the south-central U.S. is expected to slowly weaken, which will allow an upper ridge to strengthen to our west. The flow between these two systems will allow mild air to build in across much of Western Canada over the weekend and into next week. Confidence in this playing out as forecasted is not that high yet, but if it does, we could see temperatures pushing the 20 C mark by Monday or Tuesday next week, with mid-20s possible by the second half of next week.

This will be an interesting weather pattern to watch, as we’ve seen a rather persistent ridge of high pressure develop to our west over the last couple of summers, bringing record-breaking temperatures and drought to those regions. This ridge is forecast to develop a little farther east and north than the previous ones, which means it will likely have a much greater impact on our region.

Usual temperature range for this period: Highs, +7 to +22 C; lows, -4 to +6 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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