Record Breaking Weekend Ahead!

Southern Manitoba will see a potentially record breaking weekend ahead with potentially the first big heat wave of the year!  Since the week began we have broken 3 record temperatures and at least 4 other records are expected to be broken over the next few days. In fact there is also a chance that we will see the warmest weather ever experienced in March at the beginning of next week!

March has been surprisingly warm this year, with temperatures anywhere from 10 to 20C above the normal, after a unpleasant snow storm started the month with more than 15 cm of snow in some parts of the province. With most of the snow around still forecasters had a lot of uncertainty as to how warm the weather could get. The extremely warm air aloft, the warm sun, and a few days of having a southerly breeze has done a great deal in melting most of the snow! In fact just look at how much melted in North Dakota and in our Part of the Province (Left; Top: March 02,2012 snowcover vs. Bottom: March 15,2012 snowcover)There is still some snow left in SW MB. As well as Ice left to melt on the Manitoba Lakes, Rivers, and creeks before we can call it officially all melted. Although there hasn't been enough of it to keep our temperatures back. As a result we have managed to break several temperature records so far this week and that trend looks to continue at least for  thenextcouple of days.On Sunday we broke a record that was set back in 1981 at 12.5C making the new record temperature 12.8C, On Monday we broke a record that was set back in 1922 at 7.2C putting in it's place a temperature of 9.7C. Last but not least on Thursday we broke a record that was set back in 1927 at 11.1C making the new record 14.4C

850mb Temp from the
GEM REG Model

So what exactly is causing this unexpected warmth? As depicted on the map to the right a area of low pressure and a strengthening southerly flow will begin to allow plenty of heat and maybe some moisture into the northern plains including Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, as well here in Manitoba. The Warmth will extend all the way up north into Norway House.

Forecast High's for the next few days!

- Today March 16th: 21C 

- Tomorrow March 17th: 17C

- Sunday March 18th: 26C

- Monday March 19th: 26C

The top 3 hottest days ever recorded in Winnipeg in March are:

1. March 27, 1946: 23.3°C
2. March 23, 1910: 22.8°C
3. March 28, 1938: 20.6°C

Overnight CAPE of 2000 J/KG CAPE from
NAM is forecast on Sunday

 With the warm weather forecasted and highs in the 20's It looks like we will likely break the all time warmest March temperature Today, Sunday and Monday. There is one more thing that will also be a possible weather maker on the weekend "Thunderstorms"! There is a possibilty into sunday night into monday where we could see some overnight thunderstorms or what we call nocturnal thunderstorms. What we look for when forecasting thunderstorms include Moisture,Instability, Shear, and a Trigger. Here is a breakdown of what we are looking at for Sunday Night. For Moisture: Dewpoints are forecast to be near 15C, Instability: Models vary but we could see 2000J/KG of CAPE,Shear: 50-60kt of 0-500mb bulk shear and for a Trigger we have an advancing area of low pressure from the states that could provide enough energy to get things going. I will keep tweeting Via Twitter and provide you with the latest on the temperatures and thunderstorms! 

Data and some info is in part from AWM Blog