Saturday, May 31, 2008

Saturday convection

Just starting a new thread to talk about today's convection.. we're missing out on most of the action here in the southwest part of the city, but some interesting thunderstorm cells off just to our east.

23 comments:

  1. Once that line of storms in the interlake head south and clear the area that storm threat will be OVER!
    So hope we can get something good out of those storms!!!!

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  2. I hope we can get some daytime heating to aide those storms. NWS is calling for a 5% chance of wind or hail in Southern Manitoba. With moisture at 11 to 13 degrees we should have a chance at some isolated severe storms.

    Upper winds will be key, hopefully they can increase during the afternoon.

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  3. Temperature is rising rapidly here, now at 18.7 degrees, up from 13.5 just under one hour ago! Dew point is at 14, and humidity is 74%. Still a South-East wind here.

    Those storms in the Interlake appear to be very slowly picking up steam. I don't think they will really become much more than thundershowers until they get to Winnipeg. Instability in Southern Manitoba should get to 500 to 1000J/kg, with LI of -3 to -5. This situation should get interesting later this afternoon.

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  4. There is one cell that is looking quite potent!
    That should pass right through the city in a hour or so if that cell holds together!!!

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  5. The NWS is suggesting that a Weather Watch may be needed for and area from the International border through to Minneapolis shortly.

    If the NWS issued a severe thunderstorm or Tornado Watch that bumps up against the International border I think EC should also issue a WW. There is a severe t-storm warning for an area near Thief River Falls, which has the exact came current conditions as we have in South-Eastern Manitoba.

    The RUC indicates that CAPE should reach between 500 and 1000J/kg in South-Eastern Manitoba, so a weather watch may be needed for us too!!

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  6. Rob!!!
    The other day when I was in Charleswood on Grant Ave. there was a downpour or rain!
    When I went across the river on Portage Ave. the pavement was dry and NOT a drop of rain has fallen.
    Amazing how the cutoff of rain could be so extreme!!
    I mean the distance is 1 km!!!!!

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  7. Lots of severe thunderstorm warnings just South of the border. That line of storms in the Interlake is still slowly intensifying, lets hope it becomes severe! The temperature is up to 20 here, with a DP of 13.

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  8. Hopefully the interlake line can redevelop before it gets here.

    The current temperature at my house is 26.0 C, with a dewpoint of 14 C.

    It sure has a lot of moisture to work with, wso let's see what happens in the next hour or two!

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  9. The line has just redeveloped a little to the northwest of the city!
    Looks like the whole city might get a heavy downpour!!!!!

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  10. Just South of the border there are some pretty nice storms developing. This squall line needs to start re-developing and bring us some good weather!

    CAPE should be higher now, with DP values about 1.5 times higher than when the first storms came through. Temps of 20 + are all around Southern Manitoba, come on storms!

    I will be heading out to take a look at these storms if they look like they might have something interesting in them...lets hope so.

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  11. I am watching a storm fire off from my front yard, it is very interesting. Looks like some more intense late-afternoon convection is getting rolling in South-Eastern Manitoba. Maybe some large hail yet this afternoon?

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  12. TORNADO WARNING
    out for southeastern Man.
    .........

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  13. Yup, at least one confirmed tornado today. Here's a link to the story and a video of it on CTV Winnipeg's website:

    http://winnipeg.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080531/wpg_tornado_053108/20080531/?hub=WinnipegHome

    To me it looks like a landspout type tornado.

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  14. I agree.. definitely has the characteristics of a landspout type tornado.. but it's still a tornado capable of damage and injury. For those who don't know what a landspout tornado is.. see wikipedia article at.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landspout

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  15. I could see some very impressive towering cumulus clouds from my house. The storm the produced the tornado had a very faint anvil.

    Does this make 2 or 3 tornadoes this year? Was last weekend's tornado also a landspout type?

    Hopefully we will get some real severe weather in the next week or two. This stuff is interesting, but I prefer supercells over these garden variety thunderstorms!

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  16. I believe that's 2 tornadoes so far this year.. the one south of Morris last week, and yesterday's. I don't think you could classify the Morris tornado as a landspout, since it definitely came from a supercell thunderstorm, albeit a small one, and a mesocyclone was detected on radar.

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  17. Just to lighten all you severe weather enthusiasts spirits, I thought I would bring up this wonderful severe weather setup from last July.

    In late July, during that intense heat-wave Southern Manitoba baked under intense heat and humidity. This was so much that it created CAPE values of 10,000 to 11,000 J/kg over Southern Manitoba. Wind shear was marginal, and supercells relied mostly on the extreme instability to form.

    I only brought up this point because with all our very marginal severe weather talk lately, I thought we should be reminded of what real severe weather in Southern Manitoba is like. I hope this summer is just as active, if not more so than last year! I would expect within the next week or two we should get into some real severe weather. Has anyone noted any real severe thunderstorms chances in the models?

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  18. Nope, I haven't seen any real chance of severe thunderstorms in the models for the near future. O well, we have all Summer.

    About last that setup last July, I don't believe all that CAPE was because of the airmass. The CAPE and dewpoints were so high due to evapotranspiration off of the crops. This resulted in much higher levels than predicted.

    The Fighting Prairie Weather Dogs issue an evapotranspiration outlook. It can be found here:

    http://members.shaw.ca/wxdog/ET/ET.html

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  19. I actually found that CAPE data from Tornado Videos.net, by looking back at last summer's blog posts.

    They also concluded that crops likely played a large factor in creating such high dewpoints. Speaking of DP's mine has dropped from 10 degrees, this afternoon to 0 this evening. It will probably get into subzero territory for today and tomorrow.

    It looks like a strong area of low pressure will pass through later this week. Possibly the first heavy rainfall accumulations of the year. After that passes through I would think we should have some chances for some severe storms. A ridge looks to start building over the Northern Plains by early next week, and already it looks like temperatures in the mid to high twenties could happen!

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  20. Yes the monthly stats came in from Environment Canada for the month of May (channel 48) and it was a very COOL month!
    BRRRRRR!!!!!
    Yes I'm still waiting for the HOT and HUMID weather.......
    (waiting.......)

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  21. I am starting to get frustrated. It is June already, and we haven't seen one single temperature above 30 degrees. The highest temperature this year has only been 25!!!!

    It looks like the rest of the week will be cloudy, showery, rainy and unsettled. Next week isn't looking much better as of right now, but hopefully that will change. I don't want a 2005 repeat.

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  22. Looks like we could be in for a major soaking rain later this week. A strong low will emerge from the South spreading 25 to 50mm of rain across Southern Manitoba. It looks like the Northern Red River Valley, extreme South-Eastern Manitoba, and the Interlake will see the highest accumulations at this time.

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  23. 6/3

    The battle is on between another dry 'arcticish' high and a disturbance and its associated moisture. Precip echoes are slowly creeping northeast and the flow has turned southerly at Winnipeg ...we should be able to tap some moist air in the Dakotas.

    Once again some wonky temperature trends at YWG last night. Jumped up 5 degrees in 1 hour as the station tapped a SE fetch off the city ... ridiculous. The position of that station needs to be re-evaluated.

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