A hot and breezy day is setting the stage for yet another powerful storm to make its way across much of the Prairies.
According to Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), a system bearing strong wind, rain, and hail will roll into southern Saskatchewan, ultimately hitting the Moose Jaw area in the late evening.
“The biggest threat is really the possibility of hail in the two-to-three-centimeter range and some pretty decent wind gusts, between 90 and 110 kilometers an hour,” said meteorologist Brian Proctor.
“The base of this storm is going to be fairly high. So, you're going to have a good chance to produce some fairly significant hail across much of the province.”
He explained that the system and accompanying mass of unstable air is set to linger over the region for around 24 hours, resulting in pockets of inclement weather across southwestern Saskatchewan to as far as La Loche in the north.
“It's going to be really spotty and widely scattered. If you get underneath one of these storms, you're going to see fairly decent downpours. But you could go five kilometers away and get just the trace of precipitation,” explained Proctor.
“It's going to be very, very typically convective, very scattered.”
He added that while not overly likely in the Moose Jaw area, any potent summer thunderstorm could lead to tornadoes somewhere along its path.
“There's always the possibility when we get severe thunderstorms that we could see tornadic activity. It does look like it's going to be displaced further to the northwest of the Moose Jaw area back into central Alberta, up over the Swan Hill area northwest of Edmonton,” said Proctor.
“That's got the most favored chance to get something that's going to rotate. But in general terms, we're going to see potential for big storms and pretty decent winds, so maybe not tornadic, but it's always a possibility.”
While the possibility of hail and strong winds isn’t generally great news, Proctor noted that this system will be something for local storm chasers to be excited about.
“(The storms) should be fairly high base, which is always a very, very good sort of phenomena for storm chasers to get out there and look. These high base storms that don't often get rain wrapped, you often see very, very interesting light shows.”
Once this major system passes, we are in for some lingering cloudy weather with the possibility for more storms and precipitation, although cooler temperatures will result in weather that shouldn’t be quite as dramatic as tonight’s.
“It'll probably be a little less intense as we move through the weekend, potentially showery with thunderstorms, but it shouldn't be quite as bad.”
If you have weather pictures to share, feel free to email them to news@discovermoosejaw.com.