Weather: Summer heat trying to hold on

Forecast issued September 2, covering the period from September 7 to 14, 2022

After a few weeks of less than accurate forecasts, last issue’s forecast was nearly perfect. The western ridge of high pressure did push eastward, bringing sunny, hot and dry weather. The only hitch in the forecast was the slight cooldown last Friday and Saturday, which was the result of a cold front sliding southward behind an area

How has a warming climate impacted Manitoba?

Let’s see if my 15-year-old predictions for our province panned out

Every so often I like to look back at some of the articles I’ve written over the years. While doing this, I came across an article from 2007 that was my attempt to answer the question of how climate change will impact the weather across agricultural Manitoba over the next 10 to 20 years. I


Forecast: Weather models struggling

Forecast issued August 26, 2022, covering August 31 to September 7, 2022

It seems a little early for weather models to be struggling with forecasts, but that has been happening in the last several weeks. For the third consecutive week, the weather models appeared to have settled on a stable forecast, only to have small changes grow and magnify and totally change the forecast. That’s chaos theory

Forecast: Are more thunderstorms ahead?

Forecast issued Aug. 19, 2022, covering Aug. 24-31, 2022

For the second week in a row, the forecast kind of fell apart. The culprits this time around were a couple of innocent small upper-level lows. Last issue’s forecast began with mention of some slight instability. Well, that instability manifested itself as an upper low that tracked through our region on Aug. 15, setting off


Weather: Heat predicted to move in

Forecast issued August 12, 2022, covering the period from August 17 to 24

The forecast last week did not play out nearly as well as some of the previous forecasts. The main issue was that progression of the primary weather features across Canada slowed down. This not only threw off the timings on the systems, but it allowed some systems to strengthen while others weakened. For this forecast

Fall weather outlooks expect near-perfect end to season

Three main weather models expect a warm dry fall for the Prairies

Just because I wrote about hail in the last issue does not mean I caused baseball- to softball-sized hail to fall in Alberta, but talk about a weird coincidence! Now, on to our monthly weather roundup and look ahead to what the different weather models and forecasters call for at the end of summer and


Weather: Warm temps to continue

Forecast issued August 5, 2022, covering the period from August 10 to 17

Last week’s forecast was fairly accurate, only off by a day or so in the timing of systems during the first half. In the second half, the warm weather moved in, but the western low did not develop as expected, so we did not see the strong southerly winds last Sunday and Monday. For the

Hail – a feared and costly crop foe

Sizing up this major agricultural threat

Let’s look at what is probably the most feared and costly summer severe weather event: hail. How expensive can hail be? To put it into perspective, on June 13, 2020, a severe hailstorm hit Calgary, causing an estimated $1.2 billion in insurance damage, which ranks as one of the top five most expensive natural disasters


Weather: Nice mid-summer temperatures on horizon

Forecast issued July 29, 2022, covering the period from August 3 to August 10

Last week’s forecast played out close to main weather model predictions. We definitely saw cooler and unsettled conditions as a large low tracking well to our north pushed clouds and scattered showers and thundershowers, along with cooler temperatures, into our region. The forecast ended with uncertainty as to whether warmer temperatures would move in. Guess

Record-breaking heat and humidity

These weather patterns wouldn’t normally create these extremes – but they did

It might be time to take a break from our discussions on severe summer weather but then again, this topic does fit into severe summer weather because it is about heat, humidity and rain. It seems this is going to be the year where every cloud or thunderstorm that comes along has potential to drop