Friday 30 May 2014

May 29 Storm Chase

     Turned out to be quite the day in southwestern Manitoba on Thursday. Thunderstorms developed in the afternoon, some severe. Hail and torrential rains ended up being the main threats. 51 mm fell in Swan Valley, 39.7 mm in Melita and 35.6 mm at Brandon Airport according to Manitoba Agriculture and Environment Canada. Some locally higher amounts likely occurred where there are no official weather stations.

     Thursday was my first chase of the year with part of the A Weather Moment team; Scott and Matt. After reaching Virden mid afternoon, we moved south to Pipestone to see the storms that fired near Melita. We ended up not seeing much other than rain and thunder (first two pictures below). After going west to the Saskatchewan border to see the storms there (wasn't much to see as they were dying), we headed east to Carberry (and east of the line of storms that had developed). Some nice picture opportunities came on the way there (pictures 3, 4 and 5). We stayed put just north of Carberry as the sun set (6th picture) and darkness took hold. Lightning became the main feature of interest. We stopped just south of Portage to view the lightning to the west. A fantastic display of light was seen with frequent cloud-to-ground strokes. I've included a few lightning takes from the videos I had taken below (not fantastic pictures I understand). You can click any of the pictures below for an enlarged view.


 










3 comments:

  1. A fairly cloudy day today with some clearing late day. Should still manage to reach 25-27°C. Similar day tomorrow except a sunnier start in the early morning, followed by cloudier skies in the afternoon. Should reach 25-27°C again.

    At this point, some rain looks likely on Monday. Still uncertainty with amounts at this time, but it doesn't look like an overly significant rainfall right now.

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  2. Looks like this May will finish extremely close or even equal to the 1981-2010 normal. Normal is 11.4°C and with today's highs we'll finish off at 11.3°C or 11.4°C... Our 8 consecutive below normal months may be in jeopardy!

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  3. High of 27.1°C today at the airport... How did May end? Will have the answer in the May summary tomorrow morning.

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