Ben's Weather Blog

[Posted Jul 18, 2024]

You’ve probably seen somewhere just how bad the wildfires are right now; either from the news, my forecasts, (37 active fires in Alberta yesterday as of 4:00 pm!) or of course, The Weather Network. Their forecast center videos have been screaming at me for the past few days about the smoke, even though the air is crisp and clean.

Taking a look back, in 2023 around this time of year we had a similar amount of fires to now, though maybe we have a few less this year. The fire count was fantastically low before July. The smoke situation however, is astronomically better, with the smoke so far around 10 times lower than last year. In 2023 from January 1 – July 18 there were 29 days with the AQI averaging above 100. This year, only 3 days.

This year

Last year

If you have a burning hatred inside for smoke, thank two very surprising things: 2023 and the heat.

2023 was great for the fires because scientists could do mega-research whenever and wherever they want, because massive fires were literally everywhere for about 5 months. Then there was a conveniently placed winter where a ton of solutions could be developed from the winter, and then tested on those fires that just really didn’t want to hibernate. All these solutions could be easily done when there are not many fires, also known as this year before July.

The heat is more specifically the heat dome. You see, the heat dome is being very heat-domey right now, with very stable air, pressure and temperature. That is at least for the lower troposphere, since anything above that has a ton of convection, enough for me to see a thunderstorm go from Cumulus mediocris to Cumulonimbus capillatus incus in just 20 minutes yesterday! That wind could mean that if the smoke reaches even the middle troposphere, it could collect right over us, partially blocking out the sun. Anyways, the point is, since things are really stable, there just isn’t enough wind for any smoke to come over here.

To answer the question that is the title of this post, the smoke should hold off for at least another week. Once the heat dome breaks down, I’ll be checking those wind maps every day to see when we might finally have some more smoke.

[4 views as of Sep 16, 2024]

[Posted Jul 17, 2024]

Get ready for some records! I’ll start you off with another table:

After taking a look at the table, it seems that our most likely days to break a record are Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday.

These is one more record that looks like it has a very good chance of being broken! This one is the longest amount of consecutive days where the temperature reaches 30. The longest on record happened in 2021 (Leo you already know what I’m referring to) with an entire week, which happened in late June – early July. This heat wave looks like it will rack up 8 or 9 days, starting yesterday and ending mid to late next week.

[2 views as of Sep 16, 2024]

[Posted Jul 16, 2024]

It’s time for some ketchup-catchup! Firsts and lasts have been something I’ve been doing since either August or September (probably September) last year, and I noticed recently that I haven’t done them in a while! Here they are:

June 18 was the last day of the first half of 2024 where the temperature never reaches to 15 or above.

June 19 was the last day of the first half of 2024 where the temperature reaches to 5 or below.

June 27 was the last day of the first half of 2024 where the temperature never reaches to 20 or above.

June 28 was the last day of the first half of 2024 where the temperature reaches to 10 or below.

July 3 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature never reaches above 20.

[9 views, 1 comment as of Sep 16, 2024]

[Posted Jul 15, 2024]

Some long-term heat will be in effect for about the next two weeks, with a heat warning already sent by Environment Canada.

Of course, any good weather shenanigan like this is the work of the jet stream, who is going to be kind of just staying still, making a strong heat dome right over us for a long time. I really tried to find the culprit pressure system, but I just couldn’t. This one looks like a solely-upper-level low, which might not be a thing. This could be some other rare tactic I don’t know about.

Here’s a table for you to lay out some forecasted temperatures:

When you’re out in the heat, make sure to stay in shade as much as possible, and if you start to overheat, get to someplace cool as fast as possible.

[10 views, 1 comment as of Sep 16, 2024]