If you have enjoyed the heat in May, you are in for a treat this summer. The Senior Climatologist with Environment Canada has released his summer weather outlook and says the month of May is a sign of things to come.
Weather forecasters use the meteorological calendar, which means summer starts on June 1st and ends on August 31st. David Phillips is forecasting those three months to be warmer than normal for the entire province of Manitoba. He notes each of those three months is expected to be warmer.
Phillips says their weather models do not forecast how much warmer than normal it will be. However, the models do provide a sense of how confident that forecast is.
"The bright reds on my map that I'm looking at now, which cross all of Manitoba, are showing high confidence that the forecast is going to be what we say, June, July, August being warmer than normal," reports Phillips.
In fact, he says the models seem to agree with what The Weather Network is saying, as well as weather services in the United States and Europe.
"Everybody is saying the same thing," he notes. "So, they are going to be all right or all wrong come Labour Day when we crunch our numbers."
Historically speaking
And, if history is any indication, Phillips says this forecast should come as little surprise. For example, over the last 75 years, last summer was the 17th warmest in southern Manitoba, while the summer of 2023 was the 9th warmest.
"So, you've had a real space of warmer summers in recent years," he says.
According to Phillips, the last time that we experienced a summer that was cooler than normal was back in 2009. That year, the average temperature for June, July, and August was about 1.5 degrees below normal.
"The trend is clearly bet on warmer than not warmer, and you'd be a winner," he says.
As mentioned earlier, Phillips says our hot month of May will be a sign of things to come for summer. He explains that when you enter the summer on a warm note, as we are this year, the ground has warmed up, the water is beginning to get warm and therefore it is not surprising for the flavour of May to carry over.
"Rarely do you get warmer than normal conditions from the north and from the east, but the general flow in Manitoba is from the southwest," explains Phillips. "And so, we are going to see really a lot of high-pressure areas that are going to bake and broil and burn the province with these very warm temperatures."
Phillips says there will certainly be moments of reprieve, such as is the case to kick off summer. After a few days hovering around 30 degrees this past weekend, Phillips says the early part of this week will see temperatures that are closer to normal, which is 23 degrees for this time of year.
Check out your PembinaValleyOnline weather
What about the rain?
In terms of precipitation, Phillips says it is difficult to predict how much rain will fall tomorrow, never mind three months from now. He notes it is more of an educated guess than anything else. With that in mind, he says Environment Canada is calling for a wetter-than-normal month of June for southern Manitoba and then the entire summer season to have normal amounts of precipitation.
Phillips points out that we are entering what is historically the wettest month of the year for southern Manitoba. He says June has significantly more rain than any other month of the year. And, he says the timing is perfect.
"That's when you need precipitation more than any other month when the seed is in the ground and things are beginning to take," he says. "The sun is there; the warmth has come and then that's when you need that precipitation."
By the numbers, June has 45 per cent more rain than May and 10 per cent more than July.
Phillips explains that the reason why June is the wettest month is because of the jet stream. He says the jet stream moves from its winter location, which is south of Manitoba, to its summer location, which is the Northwest Territories.
"Therefore, there tends to be more active weather, more storms, not necessarily tornadoes and thunderstorms, but just weather systems that move with that jet stream," he says.
With wildfires continuing to burn out of control in Manitoba, Phillips says one of the June staples will not be a welcome addition. He notes June, July, and August are the lightning months in Manitoba, with about 22 per cent of our annual lightning strikes typically coming in June alone.
"Up to this time, most of those fires are started by people," he says. "But now when we get into the warm season, we should expect more thunderstorms, more severe weather, and lightning is certainly one of the concerns."