July will go down as the smokiest month on record for Steinbach and area. And a meteorologist says we can expect that smoky trend to continue this August long weekend.
Scott Kehler with Weatherlogics says our long weekend will actually feature fairly benign weather. He notes it will be very normal weather for early August.
Daytime highs this weekend are expected to be between 26 and 28 degrees, with overnight lows around 15 degrees. The normal high for this time of year is 26 degrees, and the average overnight low is 13 degrees.
Kehler says there is a slight chance of showers on Sunday and Monday, but otherwise there is not much in the way of active weather. However, as mentioned, it will be smoky.
"The smoke will continue to be an issue through the weekend as it drifts out from all those really severe fires in Northern Manitoba," adds Kehler.
According to Kehler, the winds in the upper part of the atmosphere are quite weak, which is causing the smoke to settle over Southern Manitoba and not go anywhere. However, Kehler says he is also not seeing any big, renewed push of new smoke wafting in.
"I anticipate that the smoke will probably lessen gradually as the weekend goes on," adds Kehler. "But it will be tough to completely get rid of it until we see a change in the weather that really generates stronger winds that could push it to the east."
Kehler says the smoke stats for July are actually quite remarkable. He notes there were 189 hours of smoke, which works out to more than six hours per day on average.
"Which is by far the worst ever recorded," he states.
Kehler says records go back to 1953, and the previous high for hours of smoke in a month was 161 back in August of 1961.
"It was a really bad month for forest fire smoke, and unfortunately, those fires continue to burn," notes Kehler. "It's something we'll probably continue to see throughout the month of August."
With respect to the smoke, Kehler says on days when it is quite heavy, it is certainly holding down temperatures. He explains that the smoke acts like cloud cover, lessening the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground and keeping the air cooler. In fact, Kehler says the smoke will keep temperatures down by a few degrees some days and make the sun feel less powerful. However, it is his belief that overall, the summer would not have been significantly warmer had the smoke been absent.
If it feels like there has been less severe weather this summer, Kehler says he does not think the smoke is having a big impact on that. He notes the reason he says that is because on days when there was a threat of severe weather, there was not a lot of smoke in the atmosphere. Having said that, Kehler notes that on days where there is the potential for severe weather, if there is smoke present, it could hold down temperatures, which will then make it more difficult for thunderstorms to get going.
"It's just generally not been a very active severe weather year across a good chunk of the Prairies, and Southern Manitoba is just kind of part of that larger weather pattern," says Kehler.
Meanwhile, Kehler says he does not see the potential for significant rain in the coming days. He notes that if we do see showers on Sunday or Monday, they will probably be quite light, not adding up to a whole lot. And should that happen, he says the showers would probably also cool off the air a little bit.
Looking ahead to next week, Kehler says he does not see much change in the weather. He notes it looks like we will experience fairly normal conditions for early August with highs in the mid-20s.