Just over a week removed from wind gusts between 90 and 100km/h across parts of Southern Manitoba, the region is again poised to see very strong gusts Monday.
“We have two key factors at play,” explained CMOS Accredited Weathercaster Chris Sumner. “First, an area of low pressure travelling along the U.S. border today will bring us a chance of flurries throughout Monday, and accumulating snow north of the Trans Canada highway. Descending southward behind it is a very strong cold front. Essentially the advancing cold front will squeeze the air around the low, increasing its pressure gradient, helping increase wind gusts quite high. Also in the mix today will be conditions allowing for strong winds further up in the atmosphere to mix down to the surface.”
Strong winds return today
Northerly gusts up to 70 km/h, and possibly higher, are likely Monday afternoon and evening. Winds are expected to diminish late Monday night and overnight into Tuesday morning.
“As the cold front arrives, it may also kick off some light snow, and alongside the strong winds, could lead to blowing snow for parts of the day, but the key will be actually seeing those flurries develop,” he said.
Temperatures will sink significantly once the cold front passes, with overnight lows Monday night in the -18 to -20 range. Temperatures will begin to rebound almost immediately on Tuesday, with slightly below seasonal highs between -4 and -6. Daytime highs Wednesday and Thursday are expected to again push well above freezing, and that will mark the weather pattern’s shift toward a possible winter event Friday and Saturday.
Say it ain't so, a Colorado low
“The long range forecast models are consistently, and with fairly strong confidence, showing a Colorado low-like system moving across the U.S. plains toward the Dakotas and Minnesota late this week,” noted Sumner. “For quite some time this Winter, the storm track has been kept well to our south, but with a switch to southwesterly flow aloft due to a strong ridge developing over the western U.S., the scene is set for our area’s first Colorado low of the season.”
Sumner stressed the exact timing and track of this possible system is still developing, but even this early in the week it looks quite likely Southern Manitoba will see some sort of impacts from this system in the form of precipitation (possibly rain and/or snow) as well as strong winds.
“We’ll be keeping a very close eye on this potential storm, and how it may impact our area.”