CALGARY -- Let's try something — our forecast in a song. Here's my pick for today, Daft Punk's One More Time.
It's a bold claim but more on that in a moment. For the record, my musicology will keep me from doing this regularly. I'd run out of songs in a week.
On to our synoptic overview: a large low is working off the Alaska Panhandle and will stall off the southern B.C. coast, pumping moisture across the southern reaches as rain in the lowlands and snow in higher elevations.
Our polar vortex is also stalled, so parts of Alberta will enter a "buzz saw" of snow between these two elements:
The green arrow off of our Pacific low represents the influx of moisture; the purple arrows show the mean wind from our polar vortex.
Saturday's wind direction is southeasterly, as is today's; that means that as this snow-band tries pushing through that layer tomorrow, it's hard-pressed to head further north into us, as the moisture is being pinned up along the foothills.
This effect subsides on Sunday, and we could see around 5 cm fall throughout the day and overnight. In all, I'm thinking six to eight centimetres isn't out of the question. We could push to 10 cm. Communities south and southwest of Calgary stand a stronger chance of surpassing that double-digit mark.
So why is Daft Punk the song of the day?
Because I've looked into as many longer-range forecasts as I can, and after this latest speed bump, our temperature trend is largely averaging out across the models:
There are absolutely no guarantees that the full offering of May will maintain this, but there's a decent confidence that moving beyond our five-day forecast, we'll find our way out of snowy conditions for a little while.
Your five-day:
Friday
Mainly cloudy, very slight chance of flurries
Daytime high: 4 C
Evening: some cloud, low -3 C
Saturday
Snow
Daytime high: 1 C
Evening: more snow, low -3 C
Sunday
Snow
Daytime high: 2 C
Evening: some cloud, low -5 C
Monday
Sunny
Daytime high: 14 C
Evening: some cloud, low -1 C
Tuesday
Sunny
Daytime high: 14 C
Evening: some cloud, low -1 C
A couple of beautiful photos again today:
Jacob sent over a few shots of the cold front moving in yesterday:
…but, that's behind us. Lois knows it, and tweeted this magnificent sunrise earlier this morning:
You can submit your weather photos here, or email me: Kevin Stanfield
