Reading Time: 3 minutes The holiday weather picture is starting to shape up, and if you're hoping for a perfect Christmas day with falling snow, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. If you are hoping for a continuation of mild winter weather, then it looks like you are in luck.
Prairie forecast: Mild and dry weather right through to the New Year
Issued Dec. 20, covering Dec. 20 to Jan. 1
Prairie forecast: Mild and dry weather right up to the holidays
Issued Dec. 13, covering Dec. 13 to Dec. 25
Reading Time: 3 minutes Here is the big picture: there are two current storm tracks across North America. The first, which is well to our north, is the storm track that would normally be across our region. So far this winter, it has been displaced to our north – one of the reasons we have been dry. The second storm track is well to the south across the southern U.S. This places us under a rather slack flow as we oscillate between pushes of warm and cool air with each passage of low-pressure to our north.
Prairie forecast: Average to above average temperatures to continue
Issued Dec. 6, covering Dec. 6 to Dec. 13
Reading Time: 4 minutes With no big storm system impacting our region, the weather models have been doing a good job with the forecasts over the last few weeks. As we start to move closer and closer towards the middle of winter, the longer we can keep the warm air around, the shorter we can hope winter will be. With that said, here is what the big picture is looking like over the next seven or so days.
Prairie Forecast: Quiet, mild start to December
Issued Nov. 29, covering Nov. 29 to Dec. 6
Reading Time: 3 minutes The last forecast played out pretty close to what the weather models were predicting, with one small deviation: temperatures ended up being about 2 to 4 C warmer than forecasted. This will be something to keep in mind as we look at this week’s forecast. The forecast is looking rather quiet for this time of […] Read more
Prairie Forecast: Winter temperatures try to move in
Issued Nov. 22, covering Nov. 22-29
Reading Time: 3 minutes There is a large, deep area of low pressure spinning over the northern half of Hudson Bay along with a building area of high pressure over the Yukon. The counterclockwise rotation around the Hudson Bay low will create a north to northwesterly flow across the Prairies. This will allow the Yukon high to drop southward. […] Read more
Prairie forecast: One more shot of warm weather?
Issued Nov. 14, covering Nov. 15 to 18
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: 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 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
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
