Tag Archives precipitation

For this forecast period we start, once again, with no strong systems impacting the Prairies. But, as we head into the weekend a strong area of low pressure is forecasted to develop over the western U.S. This low will impact our region over the weekend, but how and where is a little uncertain.

Looking at the big picture we start this forecast period with a generally zonal flow across the Prairies as Arctic high pressure slides across the far northern Prairies and weak low pressure moves by to the south. This will bring sunny to partly cloudy skies and near to slightly below-average temperatures.

Across the eastern Prairies, all eyes are on the breakdown of the western trough and the resulting ejection of the final area of low pressure. The weather models are still trying to get a handle on this feature.

We saw a strong ridge of high pressure build in last week, which brought daytime highs into the low thirties across parts of the eastern Prairies. Once the ridge collapsed, cooler air moved back in. Well, it looks like we can expect another cycle of building and collapsing ridges. Then, starting on the weekend, the weather pattern should become more energetic thanks to a strong trough of low pressure forecasted to develop off the West Coast.

Well, one week is up and as I pointed out in last week's forecast, the weather pattern still looks like it is going to flip from a cool-ish spring regime right into a summer-like pattern. This flip should happen over the next few days.

We start this forecast period with an area of low pressure exiting the eastern Prairie and taking the rain and wet snow with it. To the west, a weak frontal system looks ready to drop into northern Alberta where it should bring scattered showers.

Spring is the toughest time to forecast, but this spring is being particularly tough. The atmosphere is in a very meridional flow right now. That means there are lots of troughs and ridges. So, instead of a persistent westerly flow across our region we are seeing warm southerly flows as ridges build, followed by cool northerly flows as the ridges collapse and are replaced by troughs of low pressure.

When we have these battles between warm and cold air, there's always a good chance for a storm system or area of low pressure to develop. We've seen this happen a few times this spring and looking at the latest medium range weather models, the Prairies are likely in for a few more storms as the battle continues.