MarketsFarm — With spring officially underway, don’t expect a lot of major changes in the current weather patterns across the Canadian Prairies and the U.S. northern Plains, according to Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. at Overland Park, Kansas.
“For the rest of March, it’s status quo, it will stay cold. We’re not going to see a big increase in precipitation across the Prairies,” Lerner said.
As for the northern Plains, he said there will be waves of snow and a little bit of rain. Then come April, that is to shift to more rain and less snow as temperatures turn somewhat warmer.
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To start this forecast period, we have an area of low pressure developing over Montana. This will help bring one more day of intense heat over southern Saskatchewan and a hot day over Manitoba. That same low will bring partly cloudy skies and the chance of showers to a good portion of Alberta.
On the Prairies during the first half of April, Lerner pointed to some short-term changes with some warming and the potential for a little more precipitation.
“No major storms necessarily, maybe a more organized storm system or two might occur,” he said.
Come the second half of April, Lerner said to expect more cold air, especially across the eastern half of the Prairies and the upper Midwest as temperatures slip back a little from normal. However, he expects Alberta to remain warmer.
As the La Nina comes to an end after three years, there’s an El Nino forming, but Lerner doesn’t expect it to have any great affect on North American weather until the winter.
“There are a lot of other weather patterns that are on the way that will be dominating North America for the next six to seven months,” he said.
“Once [the El Nino] develops, winter will be drier and warmer than normal on the Prairies and probably the northern Plains too.”
— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.
