Ag Weather Forum

Frost Potential Increases for Canada Next Week

Doug Webster
By  Doug Webster , DTN Senior Ag Meteorologist

With our latest rain event exiting from Manitoba today, we are left with a few days of milder, drier weather to allow increased harvest work into early next week. Briefly cool weather could even bring a touch of frost tonight or early Saturday to parts of northern Saskatchewan and maybe parts of central Manitoba.

The sun angle is lowering and the nights are noticeably longer. The average first frost dates are rapidly approaching across many northern areas while southern areas typical don't see the first frost until middle or even third week of September. Normal rarely occurs with weather and first frost data shows widely varying dates from year to year, because of different weather patterns with each season.

During 2013, most areas saw the first frosts come later than average allowing for a great harvest. This year we see potential of some cold weather by the time we get into the middle and end of next week that could bring frost or even some freeze conditions to at least northern areas of the Prairies if not even across southern zones.

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While it is too early to start becoming detailed with a frost forecast, we see pretty good consistency with most of the models we use. There are even a couple of computer outputs that would bring some snow to parts of the front range of the Canadian Rockies during the middle of next week.

Being nearly a week before the possible event leaves us with unanswered questions. Will there be cloudiness that keeps the nights milder or will there be enough wind to prevent radiational cooling? Could the brunt of the cold air slide by just to the north? These are questions we can't definitively answer, but we do see a potential threat of frost or freeze for the middle or end of next week.

The threat would be more to some of the later-seeded crops that are still in the maturing stage. Some crops have already been partially swathed or have reached maturity. There will be very good weather during the next several days for more harvest to take place and a yield that potentially may only be exceeded by last year's crop. We will have to see how next week's weather works out to see if a season-ending frost or freeze knocks down this year's yield.

The weather pattern that brought us last winter's cold air has at times been showing itself all summer and the thought of an early frost has been a little higher on the list this year because of that.

Doug Webster can be reached at doug.webster@dtn.com

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