The adage ‘rain while the sun shines, rain all day tomorrow’ has played out true in late May and June. Unsettled weather has plenty of moisture circulating across the prairies with intermittent bursts of sunshine and temperatures at or below normal.
The Humboldt area has seen wave after wave of rainfall in the past few weeks, and that pattern may be set to last says Rose Carlsen, meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
“We’ve had this unsettled pattern over the prairies for the last few days. Most notably from Monday through Tuesday, we had that system come through that dropped quite a bit of rain through central Saskatchewan. We’ve had reports of anywhere from 20 up to 36 mm of rain, not quite enough to garner a rainfall warning, but still quite a bit of moisture for the area.”
Today’s showers are expected to move through with the hope of drier weather settling in for a bit.
The overall pattern is thanks to a giant low off the coast of British Columbia which has been spinning off weak westbound disturbances that show up as strings of showers or thunderstorm.
“It’s why we’ve been seeing these small systems and small systems. The showers that went through last night and this morning are not the large, long scale rain events that we have seen. But we have this pattern set up that’s allowing for repeated disturbances throughout the area. It’s why we’ve ended up with these showery spells.”
As for that massive offshore low, Carlsen says, “it’s pretty stout right now.” The persistent pattern could be entrenched for a few more days with drier spells providing relief. Like yesterday’s reprieve, enjoy the sun when it’s out, but don’t let your umbrella stray too far.