ICE Futures Canada’s head office in Winnipeg. (Dave Bedard photo)

ICE weekly outlook: Seasonals to weigh on canola

CNS Canada — ICE Futures Canada canola contracts ran into some major resistance over the past week before turning lower, with more downside possible as seasonal trends should weigh on values. “Seasonally speaking, we’re in the neighborhood where canola makes the turn down,” said Mike Jubinville of ProFarmer Canada, noting canola typically sees some softness […] Read more



This map shows the total amount of precipitation that fell across the Prairies during the 30-day period ending on April 26. You 
can quickly see that it has been very dry across much of the Prairies, with only the far western parts of Alberta seeing any significant precipitation.

If you like cold, the first half of April delivered in spades

Most forecasts predicted it would be chilly, but they’re 
split on what May and June have in store for us

Reading Time: 3 minutes After dealing with a cold and snowy March, most of us across the Prairies were hoping for a little better weather in April. Just how good or bad you saw April’s weather depends on what you wanted. For example, the cross-country skiers were more than happy in my region as the cold start to the month […] Read more



This map shows the total amount of precipitation that has fallen across the Prairies so far this growing season (April 1 to Aug. 27). You can see just how dry it has been this year across the southern and central Prairies. A large part of this region has seen less than 250 millimetres over this five-month period, with large parts of Saskatchewan and southwestern Alberta seeing less than 200 millimetres. The only ‘wet’ area is in northwestern Saskatchewan and 
north-central Alberta where precipitation amounts are in the 400- to 500-millimetre range.

There are extreme rains, and then the deluge caused by Harvey

Some parts of Texas received more rain in 24 hours than 
Prairie centres have seen in their wettest-ever month


Reading Time: 2 minutes As fairly quiet weather continues across the Prairies, the big weather story recently has been Hurricane Harvey, which came ashore in Texas late on Aug. 26. Harvey rapidly strengthened in the 12-hour period leading up to landfall and came ashore as a borderline Category 4 hurricane, with top winds of 210 kilometres per hour. It wasn’t […] Read more



Photo: File

Argentine wheat seedings slowed by rain

CNS Canada – Argentina’s hope for a near-record wheat crop have been dampened by excessive rain and below-average seedings. With planting nearly complete, the United States Department of Agriculture office in Buenos Aires has estimated the Argentine wheat crop at 12.8 million acres. That falls about one million acres below the official USDA forecast of […] Read more



Seeding well behind five year average, crop stages behind normal

Alberta crop conditions as of May 30

Reading Time: < 1 minute Seeding progress in the province has reached 79 per cent complete, up 22 percentage points on the week, but well behind the five-year average of 97 per cent. A weather front early in the reporting period brought strong winds and varying amounts of rain to the North West and North East regions, reaching into the […] Read more

This time I thought I'd take a break from precipitation maps. These temperature graphs for Red Deer (chosen because it is the most central location in Alberta) show the daily maximum and minimum temperatures along with the departure from average for the last 365 days (ending on May 13). Looking at the pattern in the centre graph, it will be interesting to see what the next month might hold in store for Alberta. Will we continue to see a shorter and less pronounced warm spell? Or will we see a rebound since the last below-average period was less intense than the previous ones?

Cooking up thunderstorms with Mother Nature

Severe thunderstorms are a fascinating phenomena and you need 
the right conditions to come together

Reading Time: 4 minutes Thunderstorm season isn’t too far off so we’ll continue our annual look at what is arguably one of the most fascinating weather phenomena we see in our part of the world. I always like to begin our look at thunderstorms by touching upon one of my biggest weather pet peeves, which is when people mix […] Read more