Ag Weather Forum

Canada Weather Patterns Show Change in Winds

Doug Webster
By  Doug Webster , DTN Senior Ag Meteorologist

The ever strengthening sunshine appears to be taking its toll on the never-ending cold upper level trough across eastern North America of the past few months. The trough is weakening and before we get into early next week it should be replaced by a west-to-east upper level jet stream flow across the northern U.S. and southern Canada.

These changes are certainly good news for winter weary residents of eastern Canada and New England. Even into April, Maine saw readings fall to minus 20 Fahrenheit (minus 29 Celsius) early Monday morning. This set an all-time low for April for the still deeply snow-covered state.

The sun now has the same strength that it has around Labor Day when summer temperatures are typically in place for many areas. Arctic air will now have a tough time developing since the days are longer than the nights and snow cover across central and eastern Canada will be shrinking during coming weeks.

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The developing upper air jet stream flow looks like it will take what we call a transitional type of pattern in which any given location shifts from mild to cool weather, then back to mild, and so forth. Usually over a couple of weeks a pattern like this averages out to close to normal, even though on any given day it may be milder or cooler than normal.

There should be a series of transient troughs moving from west to east across southern Canada and the northern U.S. during the next few weeks bringing changeable temperature patterns to the Prairies along with potentially a little precipitation at times. There still remains some question as to how much moisture can be gathered as low pressure and frontal systems cross the Prairies during the next two or three weeks.

The west-to-east motion tends to ring some of the moisture out of Pacific-origin storms as they cross the Rockies; this leaves only dribbles of precipitation for the Prairies. Our hope is that some moisture can be pulled northward through the U.S. Plains and possibly be gathered into one of the slower-moving systems at some point to help diminish the dry soil moisture threat across the Prairies.

This unfortunately has a better chance of happening through the eastern Prairies where soil moisture is in better shape than across the western regions where precipitation has been sparser so far this spring. Current model forecasts for May depict above-normal temperatures across the Prairies along with above-normal precipitation. If this pans out, then farmers could be set up for a good and earlier start to the seeding season than during the past two years. First we have to get some additional moisture into the soil for Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan.

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

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