It looks more and more as though our late-October cold snap and snowy conditions were indeed a false start to winter. In the last forecast I mentioned the really cold air looks to be bottled up well to our north, and it was and will be for the next week or two. You can get […] Read more
Prairie Forecast: False start to winter as mild air returns
Issued Nov. 7, covering Nov. 8 to 15
Prairie Forecast: Nice, quiet early-winter weather
Issued Nov. 1, covering Nov. 1 to 8
Interesting weather pattern setting up across the Prairies during this forecast period. Well, maybe “interesting” isn’t the right word; “boring” might be a better one. What I mean by “interesting” is just how quickly we swung from a warm fall pattern to a cool winter pattern. Low temperatures across the Prairies over the last week […] Read more
Long-range outlook points to warmer winter
Odds less likely for Prairies next three months
MarketsFarm — Warmer than normal temperatures are expected across nearly all of Canada this winter, with average precipitation for most of the agricultural areas of the Prairies. The latest long-range seasonal forecast from Environment Canada, released Tuesday, calls for a 40 per cent chance of above-normal temperatures from November through January across most of Alberta, […] Read more
Prairie Forecast Update: Warmer air not in the cards
Issued Oct. 29, covering Oct. 29 to Nov. 1
The forecast for this period has been playing out pretty close to what the weather models were predicting, but with a few small differences. For Alberta, the forecasted upper ridge does not look like it will get nearly as strong as originally forecasted as a strong northwesterly flow helps to flatten the ridge. This means […] Read more
Prairie Forecast: Arctic high slowly moving out
Issued Oct. 25, covering Oct. 25 to Nov. 1
As is often the case at this time of the year, the weather models got the general picture right, but the finer details were much to be desired. Usually, the models struggle with the forecast beyond two to five days out, but for much of this forecast period they struggled with the finer details on […] Read more
Prairie Forecast Update: Cold and some snow coming
Issued Oct. 22, covering Oct. 22 to 25
I have been waiting to see if the weather models were going to come into agreement on the upcoming shift on our weather pattern and for the most part, they have: it’s going to get cold! A large area of low pressure has formed over the eastern Arctic and the counterclockwise rotation around that low […] Read more
New drought in Argentina threatens ‘massive losses’
Rosario Grains Exchange report sees little relief on horizon
Reading Time: < 1 minute Argentina’s core agricultural farmland could suffer “massive losses” in wheat yields due to another drought, the Rosario Grains Exchange warns, even as the country reels from a drought in the last cycle deemed the worst in 60 years. The exchange has not yet changed its forecast for a 15 million tonne wheat harvest for the […] Read more
Prairie Forecast: Warmer, colder… then snow?
Issued Oct. 18, covering Oct. 18-25
Not surprisingly for this time of the year, the last forecast didn’t play out exactly as expected, but overall, it was pretty darn close. The large area of high pressure that was forecasted to develop over the northern Prairies and slowly drop southward did just as forecast, but over the first few days the high […] Read more
Alberta beef producers in dire need of better drought response, says chair
Meanwhile, grain and canola producers managing with crop insurance
Reading Time: 5 minutes Alberta cattle producers need better business risk management (BRM) programs and they need them yesterday, says the chair of Alberta Beef Producers. “I believe we are in a crisis,” said Brodie Haugan from his ranch about 80 kilometres south of Medicine Hat. “We’ve seen the compounding effects of drought and severe weather. We’ve seen many […] Read more
Brazil tells landowners to stop setting fires in Amazon ‘climate emergency’
Properties could be embargoed, agency says
Sao Paulo | Reuters — Brazil’s government told ranchers and farmers on Friday to stop setting fire to the Amazon rainforest as clouds of dense gray smoke make the air increasingly unbreathable in the northern city of Manaus, threatening sanctions if they do burn areas of land. “Fire is not natural in the Amazon, it […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
