-12

Tonight and tomorrow, the temperature will be very abnormally stable near -12.

Here’s what is looks like:

Okay, that’s it! Just wanted to quickly mention a really weird temperature anomaly.

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Very big and unusual snowfall event tonight through tomorrow night

This one is very unusual because we are getting a LOT of accumulation with temperature below -10, in late November.

A strong, prominent, and slow-moving trough will create very long-lasting snowfall, likely accumulating about 15 cm. Snow is expected to begin to fall this evening, and last until tomorrow night. It will be the heaviest during the day on Saturday.

Most forecasts have the accumulation amount near 15 cm. It does seem though that it could end up as low as 10. However, the upper end is massively farther with the highest estimating 25 to 30 cm. If we get that much, this would probably be one of the biggest snowfall events of the 2020s!

Watch out for very snowy conditions for the next while, especially Sunday. The main thing about this is, the snow will probably not even begin the melt until December, because this cold wave is looking like it will keep temperature below 0 for the rest of the month. This means, whatever we get now will probably stay for at least a month.

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Here’s your winter forecast for 2024!

Finally we have a long-range!

Overall, it looks like this year we’re going to have a weak La Niña, with oceanic Nino3.4 SST anomalies (aka the temperature of the ocean in the area measured for El Niño/La Niña) looking 1.5 to 2 degrees below seasonal. Basically, that means below normal temperatures for this winter.

Overall it looks like alternating cold and heat waves, with cold ones more frequent. The strong heat waves will still occur and it may even amount to cold and heat records not far apart. This also means maybe a few fool’s springs in January and February as well.

As well, there will likely be at least some snow associated with every cold wave, meaning much more snow cover than last year’s very mild winter. This will mean that, paired with sufficient spring rains, we will probably see the wildfire season of 2025 quite a bit better than even 2024.

After this winter, it does look like temperatures will increase once again likely amounting to a near average or a possible weak El Niño for next season.

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A big cold wave is coming!

Hmm… Should there be such a thing as a “Snow wave?”

If you’ve been looking at any sort of forecasts lately, you would probably know it’s going to be chilly next week. If you’ve been looking at any sort of forecasts lately lately, you would probably know it’s going to be cold next week. If you’ve been looking at any sort of forecasts lately lately lately, you would probably know it’s going to be very cold next week. Yeah, like a high of -9 on Thursday, from Environment Canada.

To start this off, let’s take a look at what is causing the cold.

  • A – A Colorado low will create the original cold wave. This would only give us one or two days of near to below average temperatures on its own.
  • B – This is the area that will get the cold temperatures form the Colorado low.
  • C – Here, there is also a low. This would get us very quickly back to average average temperatures as well.
  • D – In this area, just as the Colorado low moves off, a low will suddenly form and strengthen to an extremely strong low in record time. This is likely from perfect conditions that will be prevalent; near the jet stream and low wind shear. This low will also push off the high that’s almost always in a certain spot in the Pacific Ocean. This is a very rare occurrence. It will also stay in one place for a long time.
  • E – Here a big ridge will form early to mid next week, but the extremely strong low will keep blocking it from reaching us, eventually fizzling it out entirely, while de-intensifying to low a bit.
  • F – This area will stay at cold temperatures long-term. It will likely last until at some point in the last week of the month, but that’ll vary for different areas.

If you were wondering about the actual forecasted temperatures, here they are:

Well, it’s looking cold! Maybe even snow as well. For that, we’ll wait until we closer to any big events, and then I’ll post something for that. Maybe also an update for the cold at some point. For now, we’re done!

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The recent heat wave got us a record! How did that happen?

High-pressure system, or anticyclone. Which one do you use?

From November 6-9, we had highs of 10.6, 14.3, 15.6, and 7.3. Each was at least a few degrees above average. We even had the very rare 5 degree November low on the 7th! That low of 5.2 collected us a record for the highest low.

The setup for this was a naughty little high to the south and low to the north. The high created a large ridge, and also pushed warm air up to the northerly low. This created very warm temperatures for a few days.

The heat wave was also odd because it was bordered by short cold waves on either side, which both brought highs to near 0.

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October recap – Firsts, lasts, and stats!

I should get “Firsts and Lasts” trademarked.

October brought a severely low amount of records – none! That means this is just all firsts and lasts, plus a few other things.

Firsts and Lasts:

  • Oct 8 was the last day of 2024 where the temperature reached to 20 or above.
  • Oct 12 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature reached below 0.
  • Oct 21 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature never reached above 10.
  • Oct 28 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature never reached above 5.

Next up, here some stats:

  • The total precipitation was 2 mm, which is abnormally dry.
  • The average temperature was 6, which is near normal.
  • The highest and lowest temperatures were 23 and -4.1.
  • The average humidity was 66%.
  • The highest wind and gusts were 34 and 60 km/h.
  • The average pressure was 1013.9 hPa.

I hope you enjoyed reading! ~3 weeks until the November recap!

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A big heat wave, 17 degrees, two heat records. Yep, that means snow tonight!

The Alberta clipper strikes again!

So, if I had to say, probably 1-3 cm. That seems about right. Almost all the forecasts say a snowfall total of about 2 centimetres, starting this evening and ending overnight. The actual reason for this is a tiny little trough in the jet stream, which is from an Alberta clipper that is a lot farther south than you would expect. The area of precipitation is very thin, with it starting at Jasper, travelling north-northeast to Edmonton (Hey, that’s us!) and then basically straight east way off to Manitoba.

For the amount of snow on the ground that we wake up to tomorrow morning, it will vary from 0.5 to 1.5 centimetres. It really depends on how much time the surface soil temperature is above 0.

One more thing: Recaps are coming tomorrow for October and the strong heat wave!

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November outlook time!

November, overall, will probably somewhat similar conditions to October, except slightly weaker heat waves and slightly stronger cold waves. Overall, very slightly above average temperatures.

For the first half, it’s short cold waves and short heat waves, with a pretty dominant heat wave coming up from the 6th to 10th. It looks like very changeable temperatures for the first 5 days, then the heat wave – which’ll probably get us at least one 10 degree day – and then a cooling trend towards the 12th. It does seem that we could see another quick heat wave after that for 1-3 days, but that’s still pretty uncertain.

For the entire first half, everything is very uncertain. I have forecasted that we’ll probably continue the pattern of quick alternating heat and cold waves, but there is a chance at a more extended cold wave. Maybe. Hard to tell. I do see The Weather Network plunging towards -4 for it’s last handful of days on the 14 day forecast, but I also see AccuWeather saying a heat wave right there. I do see AccuWeather’s temperature forecast going pretty far down for the last 7 days of the month, but usually I notice AccuWeather’s weeks of 3-4-5 are not the best and actually considerable worse than something like weeks 6 and 7. So, second half of November: We’ll have to wait and see.

One more thing, What I have noticed is the forecasts don’t seems to take El Niño/La Niña into account, because last winter the highs were overall ending up higher than what the forecasts say, but recently they’ve been lower. This does mean that even though Environment Canada may have been saying 15 degrees for Thursday, it is not unlikely that it’ll end up below 10.

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Snow is coming tonight!

Yes, that’s right.

Note: By tonight I meant tonight and tomorrow morning, because it’s more than just tonight.

For the snowfall total, it’s somewhere between 2 and 6 centimetres, with it most likely landing around 4. The snowfall is looking like it’ll start around midnight tonight with actually a risk of freezing rain, and maybe even some rain before that in the evening. It’s probably going to be very continuous snow all the way through sometime tomorrow morning. It’s probably going to get more and more scattered, before finally tapering off mid to late in the afternoon.

The rain, then possible freezing rain, then snow and temperatures below 0 will probably not be a very fun mixture of conditions tomorrow morning. So, watch out. It may be a little treacherous!

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Temperatures are taking a massive plunge into the negatives and snow totals into the positives tomorrow!

Conditions are NOT looking good for tomorrow morning! The classic trifecta of bad commute is about to arrive: Cold, wind, and snow. No, you didn’t read that incorrectly. Snow.

Let’s start off with the temperature, where the it’ll probably not rise more than a degree until Tuesday morning, starting when I post this. At the time of writing, we’re at about 6 degrees, but that is already starting to decrease, and we’re looking like a low of…”It depends.” What it depends on is how far you want to count “night” to last, because we may not see the rounded-to-the-nearest-degree temperature go up at all tomorrow in the day. So, we’ll just say it depends. This creates another complication of “what is day?” Yeah, we’re going to completely skip a low for tonight and a high for tomorrow, leaving us all the way at tomorrow night, with a gargantuan low of -5. (That lands us at 5 degrees below normal, which is considered “very cold” for this time of year)

Next up, wind. Breezy conditions are expected to start up overnight tonight, and persist until the early evening tomorrow, with winds of 20 km/h gusting to 45. Of course, the worst is right when we’re going to be going to school and work.

Finally, the moment that we’ve all been anticipating – Snow! Don’t worry, (but actually you really should) it’s only a light dusting. It looks like very light snow will begin around sunrise, and continue until the evening. Total amounts range from a few millimetres to a little over a centimetre, with the most likely amount being about half a centimetre. This is not good, because all that snow will accumulate on top of frozen puddles, meaning lots of slipping, sliding fun and catastrophes.

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