Wednesday, October 27, 2010

"Great Lakes Cyclone"

Update: I was just checking the weather at the airport in Regina, Saskatchewan. They are currently -3C with blowing snow. The visibility in the last hour finally rose above 1km for the first time in the last 24 hours. The winds have been gusting over 85km/h and sustained at over 60km/h since midday yesterday. Wind chills have been between -10 and -13C and the lowest pressure recorded with this storm was 994mb. Now how is that for October.

From CTV.ca Trucks remained parked in a Regina parking lot after the Trans Canada Highway became to dangerous to travel on.

"As of 2 PM Central, Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport, Minnesota has now dipped to 28.27" sea-level pressure, breaking the lowest pressure ever observed in the interior U.S."
Jesse Ferrell AccuWeather


Wow, what a storm system for October. Perhaps an indication of things to come. A storm this strong has only happened once before and usually similar storms occur in November. But here we are with a pre-Halloween monster. The storm in question has pulled into northwestern Ontario this morning. The circulation around the system is driving unseasonably warm air north on the east side of the system and driving cold air south on the backside.

At about 3am this morning the winds turned out of the northeast to the south in Montreal and the temperature finally responded shooting up to 17C at 5am on October 27, unreal. Needless to say things are quite different in southeast Saskatchewan and North Dakota where fierce winds and about 15cm of snow have made travel very difficult. The winds have gusted over 80km/h at times dropping visibility to less than 1km. Conditions should very slowly improve today. Over the Great Lakes and southern Ontario, most precipitation has stopped but the winds continue to blow. Storm warnings are posted on the lakes themselves with high wind advisories and warnings over land. They will gust up to 100km/h today. Here in the St. Lawrence Valley look for a windy day as well but below warning criteria in the 40-60km/h range. Temperatures will be warm at 18C with sunny breaks.

Across the Midwest they will be picking up the pieces today from widespread damage to homes and power lines. At least one dozen tornadoes were reported yesterday from Ohio and Michigan across Illinois and into Minnesota and Wisconsin. In northern Minnesota the rain has change to snow with strong winds this morning.

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