Guys,
After a sizzling start to June till now, we have been under a hot, hazy and humid, the 3 Hs, airmass that has been rather unstable and producing heavy and severe thunderstorms in many isolated areas, including a couple not far from Montreal. Ever since June started, we have been blessed with hot weather which is courtesy of high pressure in the Atlantic Ocean delivering warm, moist and humid air from the Gulf of Mexico and thus giving a nice ridge in the jet stream while flooding most of eastern Canada with this summer weather. This is the reason why it has been so hot, which I'm not complaining about. I mean, I have been comfortable outside at night since June began. After a terrible May, except for 2 or 3 days out of 31, it was one of the worst Mays on record! Today, the mercury rose to 33-36 Celsius. In the past few days, we had temperatures reaching over 30C which is offically declared as a heat wave. Once you have 3 or more consecutive days of temperatures hovering at 32C or more, that's a heat wave. With all the instability in the atmosphere in southern Ontario and Quebec, we could expect day time and nocturnal thunderstorms because of rediculously high dewpoints (more than 20 Celsius at times, yes, 20) and heavy humidity. All we needed was a trigger.
Anyways, despite that resume of our weather since June started, Enkil is right. We are going to see a big change in the forecast for next week. The jet stream will be a key factor here, as it always is. The jet stream is going to sink south while it rises in the west. We're going to see a difference in the airmass by then. Temperatures will really drop and there's no way we will even get close to 30C, sorry to say. It's going to be the complete opposite, in fact. One major explanation for this will be the remnants of tropical depression Arlene, which is hitting the Florida Panhandle as we speak. It will track North to the Great Lakes by Sunday-Monday or possibly later as it could slow down. This IS going to play a role in our forecast. The other thing that will cool us down by Wednesday or later is a secondary low pressure system. This will bring in cooler and cleaner air, but it's too early to speculate where and when it's going to hit. There will be a cool down. In respect to the 14 day trend, I'm sorry to say that it was right this time. We will see below normal temperatures, although not too substantial, and some rainfall. In plain coincidence, it seems that June 18th is the worst day of all with an expected high of 12C.
However, the remnants of Arlene may be done and over with well before the end of the week, but we can still expect below normal temperatures, most likely, but no guarantees. Then, as I said, there will probably be another system that we'll have to contend with after that.
I'm not drawing any conclusions for the 18th yet as it is still too early, and as Paul said, TWN, or Meteomedia, is lousy at long term forecasts, but I would say that they're usually accurate in short term weather. According to the 5 forecast displayed by Environment Canada, it's pretty much identical to that of TWN, give or take a couple of degrees.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/cities/can/Pages/CAQC0363.htm
If I had to predict a more profitable forecast, here's what I would say.
Travis' personal prediction and reasons:
1-It most likely wouldn't be 12C since that is a little exagerated. I'm pretty sure they would raise that up since this is long range.
2-Judging from Arlene's speed, it should be over well before Saturday. And I'm not saying that it will necessarily pass through here. It's still hard to predict.
3-It probably won't be an all day rain scenario. Chances are, since it's long term, it would probably be scattered showers or completely different conditions.
4-It's most likely that the temperatures will get much cooler than we've been seing thus far. I can't really disagree on that.
5-Even if it does indeed rain, we still don't know the evening forecast.
6-ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN 7 DAYS!!!
In respect to Saturday's forecast, we really can't make any speculations or interpretations on what "could" happen. We must remember that the weather is always changing, so I'm more than certain that many changes can happen till then. There's no right or wrong answer here. We'll just have to wait and see since the long range is all over the place more than 80% of the time. The 14 day trend was a good indicator for expectatons for this week for the past little while, unlike in recent past, but it is overly exagerated for predicting in terms of expected temperatures. This is why we can't trust what they're saying for that particular day. Ironically enough, that day is expected to be the worst day so far in a long time, even compared to all of May. I honestly can't believe such an extreme forecast.
In summary, it's going to get cooler, no doubt, for valid reasons, as I explained. In regards to Saturday, it's still hard to tell whether or not it's going to be good or bad. From what I can interpret, it will most likely be slightly cooler with possible precipitation, but that's a hunch. I'm not going to make radical statements since it is too far. We'll take ONE step at a time and monitor the weather day by day and see what happens. I'll be posting the latest conditions when I see them. One thing is for sure, it will not be like what we've experienced thus far.
In regards to thuderstorms, I was weather watching everyday since this muggy air flooded into here. The conditions were so setup nicely that I was expecting to see one, but I suspect we were missing the catalyst. We didn't see much of them here as they were hit and miss and very sporadic. Many of them were around Montreal and up towards Shawinigan and Gaspe yesterday. Lots of strong storms developed in southern, eastern and cental Ontario , too. For the most part, many storms encompassed our area in the past few days, but nothing too severe. I'm still going to be on the lookout for the next 2-3 days, before the cooler air sinks in!
Don't worry too much on the expected forecast, guys, anything can happen. Seriously, don't put yourselves down believing a week-from-now forecast. However, there's a rule I always follow: Whenever you get hot and humid weather like this for a long period of time, you feel that there's a catch and a price to pay for it!
That's the way I usually feel. All in all, it would have been great if the competition started this weekend.
As for my email, Enkil, send it to: travis2@videotron.ca
. As far as I'm concerned, that's my only email address.
Regards,
Trav.
