A senior climatologist says southern Manitoba is in for a season that is warmer than normal.
Fall officially arrived at 7:43 am., Saturday. David Phillips with Environment Canada says forecasters seem to agree on what to expect for the months of September, October and November.
"Our models seem to suggest, the Americans are saying the same thing, Canadian models are saying warmer (than normal)," says Phillips. "And normal precipitation going forward."
Phillips says this forecast comes on the heels of a summer that was also warmer than normal. But Phillips says from a weather standpoint, it was actually a rather boring summer in southern Manitoba. He says this summer, which ran from June first to August 31st according to the meteorological calendar, was the 17th warmest on record, with an average temperature that was a little more than half a degree warmer than normal. He notes there were six days above 30 degrees, which is below the historical average of eight. And, as far as precipitation, Steinbach received about 225 millimetres of rain, which is about 85 per cent of an average summer.
"It was almost like a Goldilocks kind of a summer where temperatures were a little bit warmer than normal but not excruciatingly hot and also precipitation was kind of close to normal," he explains.
In fact, Phillips says province-wide, there were many things that made this a normal summer. For example, he says there were seven tornadoes, which is average, there were 433,000 lightning strikes, which is also normal, and about 250,000 hectares of land burned from fires, which is slightly more than normal.
"It was rather kind of a boring summer, and boring is good in weather," suggests Phillips. "If you are not boring then there are problems, you are one extreme or the other."
Meanwhile, Phillips says the month of September has been anything but normal. He notes the first half of the month ended up being almost six degrees above average. And as for precipitation, he notes the rain event earlier in the week means Steinbach has already had double the precipitation for a normal September, even though the first two weeks were very dry.
Phillips assures residents of southern Manitoba that the summer weather is not over. He notes often we cannot make it through the month of September without having the first killing frost or the first dusting of snow. However, according to Phillips there should still be ample opportunity to bring in what is left of harvest and to plant next year's crop.
And, taking it one season further, Phillips says he is not convinced that this coming winter will be as bad as some people are suggesting. The models are pointing towards a La Nina winter. Phillips says in years past that seemed to always suggest a very cold and snowy winter, opposite from an El Nino, which we experienced last winter. But he notes over the last 30 years, it has been less of a guarantee that a La Nina winter would be extra cold. He says climate change is the reason for this.
"When you get an El Nino winter like we had last year, combined with climate change, then everything is pulling in the same direction, and guess what you end up with a warmer than normal winter," he explains. "But when you have La Nina giving you potentially a colder winter and you've got climate change which is giving us warmer seasons, warmer winters, then it's almost as if the tug of war is still going on and that's why it's harder to make a call as to what the winter ahead is going to be."
Phillips says right now they are calling for a milder than normal winter, in spite of the La Nina personality.