Rainwatchers report a wide variety of totals for Tuesday

Parts of Southern Manitoba woke up Wednesday to a few light showers or even flurries.

"Both being the last hurrah of that low pressure system that’s been tracking through the U.S. plains the last couple days, and currently centred over Minnesota," noted CMOS Accredited Weathercaster Chris Sumner. "The final area of precipitation with the system has been working its way west to east Wednesday morning through the Red River Valley and Southeastern Manitoba. The rain has wrapped up west of the Red River, and should taper off before noon east of the Red."

Sumner noted a substantial area of relatively heavier rainfall set up over Southwestern Manitoba Tuesday, leading to significantly higher totals for most places west of the Manitoba Escarpment.

The following totals are for Tuesday, April 16th through 7 a.m. Wednesday, April 17th and are courtesy PembinaValleyOnline Rainwatchers, Environment Canada and the Manitoba Ag Weather Network:
Cartwright - 30mm (1.2 inches)
Clearwater - 26.4mm
Baldur - 26.2mm
Elm Creek - 13.8mm
Reinland - 13.4mm (just half inch)
Steinbach - 11.1mm
Winkler - 11mm
Manitou - 10.2mm
Jordan - 10mm (4/10th)
Carman - 9.7mm
Kane - 9.6mm
Altona - 8.4mm
Morris - 8.0mm
Morden - 6.7mm (Tuesday only)
Dominion City - 6.3mm
Gretna - 5.1mm (Tuesday only)
Emerson - 4.1mm (Tuesday only)
25mm = 1 inch

With the impacts of the final furthest westerly reach of the U.S. low ending this morning, Sumner's focus is shifting to the strong low moving through the Prairies, and is in Saskatchewan, right now.

"This low will track into Southern Manitoba today as it moves relatively slowly eastward," he said. "As it does, we’ll see a chance of showers or flurries Wednesday night and Thursday, but at this point it’s looking like minimal additional accumulation as the main snow event from this system is expected to impact central and northern parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba."

Snowfall Warnings are in place for places like Thompson, The Pas, Snow Lake, Flin Flon and Norway House where total snowfall accumulations of 15 to 30 cm are expected between now and Friday morning. Sumner stressed we won't be seeing anything like that here.

"We’ll have a break from the precipitation Wednesday into the evening, with the showers and flurries chances picking up by Thursday morning, and remaining pretty good through the day into Thursday night," he said. "Again, we’re not expecting significant totals from either rain or snow, and any snow we do see will mostly melt on contact due to warm ground temperatures and daytime highs expected to stay above freezing." 

He noted the wind will pick up Thursday, and shift northwesterly gusting up to 60 km/h, after the low’s cold front sweeps through. Wednesday's seasonal highs between 9 and 12 will be replaced with well below average temperatures for Thursday and Friday, with highs between 3 and 5 as colder air sinks into the region.

"Cloud cover from this system will linger across Southern Manitoba Friday, before we see a return to sunshine for the weekend as upper level ridging over the Prairies returns, meaning high pressure, clear skies and temperatures rebounding to average over the course of Saturday and Sunday."