Monday, October 22, 2012

Summer east - winter west

Rain and the setting sun slow traffic along Highway 10 east near the Richelieu River on Saturday. (ValleyWX Pic)
That upper level low that brought Montreal lots of clouds and showers on Sunday has finally began to move northeast of the region. This will allow for clearing skies today with plenty of sunshine and temperatures up to 14C. Montreal has had close to 40mm of rain with some locations off island reporting over 50mm since Friday morning. There was even some thunder reported overnight Friday and again Saturday afternoon. Saturday was almost summer like in southern Quebec with humid conditions, bubbly cumulus clouds and temperatures near 20C. I drover to and from Sherbrooke on Saturday and encountered every kind of weather you can think of, from warm sunshine to thunderstorms and rainbows followed by a spectacular sunset while it was raining (see photo above).

The colors were just spectacular here on L'Ile Perrot this weekend, but 50km/h winds on Sunday brought down many of the remaining leaves.
There will be a well defined split in the weather this week across Canada with cold and wintry weather in the west and increasing sunshine and warmth in the east. A strong low pressure over Montana will move into southern Alberta, and with lots of cold air in place, snow is forecast. As much as 10-15cm is forecast along and south of the Trans Canada Highway tonight. Temperatures are expected to remain below freezing most of the week. Meanwhile a warm front will slowly lift across New England and southern Quebec late Tuesday and Wednesday allowing for warm southwest winds to develop. Temperatures are expected to warm from the single digit highs of Tuesday up to 22C (72F) by Friday, double the normal high for late October.

Tropical trouble for east coast?

One final note, forecasters are watching a growing area of clouds and showers south of Hispaniola that has a high chance of becoming a tropical cyclone. Next on the list in this busy season is Sandy. Computer models are all over the Atlantic basin with this storm once it develops, including several scenarios that take it up the east coast as a decent storm. We are days away from development and forecast tracks but this is well worth keeping an eye on for potential weather problems for the east coast and possibly our region Halloween week. Stay tuned.

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