PembinaValleyOnline News

It's a question we've heard a number of times Wednesday morning, "Is that fog or smoke in the air this morning?"

We checked with CMOS Accredited Weathercaster Chris Sumner for the answer.

"What we're seeing this morning across parts of the Pembina and Red River Valleys is fog," he explained. "The airmass over the region early this morning was fairly cool, but also moisture rich. Combined, as we saw the atmosphere become saturated, and the dew point was reached. That's the temperature which water vapour will condense into visible fog, mist and water droplets."

An upper level low moving west to east across central Manitoba brought showers with it throughout parts of Saturday afternoon and evening.

"There were embedded thunderstorms within these lines of showers, and that's why some points received significantly more rainfall than others," noted CMOS Accredited Weathercaster Chris Sumner. "The counterclockwise rotation of the low had the showers moving generally southwest to northeast, but not every part of the area received measurable precipitation yesterday due to dry pockets within the overall system."

After much of the region dodged the drops and thunderstorms which developed Thursday evening, a much more general rainfall occurred during the early morning hours of Friday.

After the eastern portion of the area, near the U.S. border, missed accumulating rainfall on Sunday, that wasn't the case on Monday when a second system essentially moved west to east along the international border bringing a round of precipitation starting in the morning and lasting into the afternoon before exiting the area.

Showers and thunderstorms crossed Southern Manitoba Tuesday morning, bringing accumulating rainfall to essentially everywhere in the Pembina and Red River Valleys.

The middle of July started wet, with multiple rounds of shower activity moving across the region Monday.

"The first area of precipitation hugged the international border early Monday morning," explained CMOS Accredited Weathercaster Chris Sumner. "The second round developed mid-afternoon and lasted into early Monday evening. The rainfall was developing along a frontal boundary that was draped between Southern Manitoba and North Dakota. Areas north of it topped out around 19 to 21 degrees for daytime highs. Meanwhile, Grand Forks landed between 28 and 30 degrees yesterday."

We're waking Friday up to a much cooler and comfortable start to the day, but also a very smoky one. Air Quality Warnings are in effect for essentially all of Southern Manitoba.

"Wildfire smoke has returned to Southern Manitoba behind a cold front that swept through yesterday," explained CMOS Accredited Weathercaster Chris Sumner. "Northwesterly surface winds, coupled with northwesterly winds aloft, have pushed that smoke southward from forest fires in Northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan."

The first of several disturbances this week brought another round of precipitation to parts of the Pembina and Red River Valley on Monday, the third time its rained in some locations since Canada Day.

"That may not sound that notable," explained CMOS Accredited Weathercaster Chris Sumner. "But some places in May and June only had rain two or three times over the course of the respective month. After the area was starting to talk about getting dry, for much of the region, we are catching up on that moisture deficit we had since the start of Spring."

After some parts of the Pembina Valley received between 50 and nearly 70mm of rainfall early Friday morning, according to our PembinaValleyOnline Rainwatchers, a few locations received a second round of precipitation Friday evening.

For the second time this week, a series of severe thunderstorms rumbled across the region early Friday morning, with Warnings again issued for the Morden, Winkler, Altona, Emerson and Vita regions.