Reading Time: 4 minutes It looks like the well above average temperatures that flooded across the prairies over the last week or so will be coming to an end, at least eventually. The good news is that it doesn't look like it will be an abrupt end with well below average temperatures moving in.
Prairie forecast: One more shot of warm weather?
Issued Nov. 14, covering Nov. 15 to 18
El Nino to continue through Northern Hemisphere spring, U.S. forecaster says
Reading Time: < 1 minute Reuters — El Nino weather conditions will continue through the Northern Hemisphere during April-June 2024 with a 62 per cent chance, a U.S. government weather forecaster said on Thursday. “Above-average sea surface temperatures (SST) across the equatorial Pacific Ocean were indicative of a strong El Nino, with anomalies increasing in the central and east-central Pacific […] Read more
Prairie Forecast: False start to winter as mild air returns
Issued Nov. 7, covering Nov. 8 to 15
Reading Time: 3 minutes 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: Nice, quiet early-winter weather
Issued Nov. 1, covering Nov. 1 to 8
Reading Time: 3 minutes 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
Reading Time: < 1 minute 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
Reading Time: < 1 minute 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
Reading Time: 3 minutes 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
Reading Time: 2 minutes 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
Low water on Mississippi to persist despite improved drought outlook
Risk of getting stuck mean less grain per barge
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — Low water levels on the lower Mississippi River are likely to persist through at least January despite expected above-normal precipitation across the southern U.S. this winter, forecasters with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Thursday. The severe to exceptional drought choking the lower Mississippi River valley is expected to […] Read more
Prairie Forecast: Warmer, colder… then snow?
Issued Oct. 18, covering Oct. 18-25
Reading Time: 4 minutes 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
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
