Weather Vane

As I work on creating this forecast, for the first time in several months, a large area of low pressure is poised to move through southern and central Manitoba, bringing with it the first widespread rains in a long time. The big question is whether this is a switch in the hot, dry pattern we have been in,

It is not that surprising with weak storm systems moving through, plenty of ridging and not a lot of moisture that the weather models are struggling a little bit with the timing and placement of systems, but the overall pattern is being forecasted quite well. Since the systems are weak, we tend not to notice

Well, if anything, the weather pattern is consistent. My forecast last week didn’t do a bad job, but when you have such a consistent pattern, all you really have to do is say, “today is going to be the same as yesterday.” The last forecast called for a couple of chances for showers, and those

Wind speed and direction are two of the toughest things to forecast. Normally, being off on these weather features does not have a large impact on the overall forecast, but when we are dealing with smoke, it certainly can. Now I am not saying the wind forecast was off in the last issue, but that

If this is not a persistent pattern, I do not know what is. Let’s see, the week starts off nice, with temperatures in the low to mid-20s along with the odd widely scattered shower or thunderstorm. Then by mid- to late week, the temperatures jump back up into the low to possibly mid-30s, with those

Well, we have talked about this subject before: weather persistence. That’s the idea that the same general weather pattern will continue despite what the weather models or the atmosphere are trying to do. We saw this in the last forecast period as the warm to hot, dry weather continued to dominate. We did see a

I don’t think anyone could have predicted just how strong the western ridge of high pressure, or the “heat dome,” would become in our last forecast period. The ridge dominated the weather and, due to the strength of the ridge, moved slower than forecasted. This kept our region mostly dry, with temperatures going from warm