"Shear" Luck!

Good news for the Gulf! Bonnie has now been downgraded from a tropical storm to a tropical depression. The reason? Wind shear. Tropical cyclones do not like wind...or at least winds that they don't create. While it's true that wind shear can favour the development of indivudal thunderstorms, this is not the case for cyclones which are a series of storms attempting to get organized. With winds coming from all different directions Bonnie is just unable to keep herself together and is losing steam fast. It is not likely that she will become a hurricane, but even as a weak strom, her current track (seen below) is cause for concern for those involved in the clean-up of all of that oil.

Sunday Looking Good!

I have some good news and some bad news. What would you like first? The good news? Well the good news is that Sunday is looking promising. Yesterday on the blog (see below) I was talking about the potential for a Sunday rain maker. The above image is from the latest North American model and it shows a clearing trend into Sunday morning. We'll still see some rain on Sunday but mainly in the overnight hours. The bad news? Well the bad news is that there is still the chance for wet weather on Saturday. There's really no change in the latest model prediction compared to yesterday's run. As I pointed out here on the blog yesterday, Saturday is far from a washout with dry conditions expected for much of the day but showers and maybe a thunderstorm is possible. While the North American model calls for a late afternoon/early evening shower our own CHEX Futurecast puts the rain south of Peterborough with just the chance of a light shower around 8pm...so it's not all bad. So what's my call for tomorrow? I expect a generally cloudy day with some sunny breaks and a day that is bookended with a chance of showers. An early morning shower is possible as is some late day rain around the time the Little Lake Music Festival gets underway (which I'm hosting btw). As for thunderstorm activity, I'm not seeing anything frightening in the models but with tomorrow's expected high of 29 degreess coupled with high humidity levels I can see why Environment Canada is a little concerned.

Rain for Saturday? Really?

This weekend (like all summer weekends in the Kawarthas) looks to be a busy one and a lot of what's going on depends on the weather. Everybody wants a good weekend forecast but this weekend is not without a few "blemishes." We'll start with tomorrow. There is a very good chance for rain tomorrow as an area of low pressure pushes in from the southwest. The latest forecast models put the low pressure center riding north of the region but there's a good chance of some frontal precipitation and generally overcast conditions. Our own CHEX FutureCast shows the potential for heavey rain tomorrow morning and possible thundershowers. As for Saturday...well there is hope.

Here's the latest North American forecast model run and it looks promising. There is a good chance for showers for part of Saturday but we look to at least get a break from the rain that afternoon as we'll be sitting between systems. I don't expect perfect conditions but the rain will likely have moved to the east of us Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately that second system (which I've labelled) moves in shortly after and on Sunday (at this point) it looks like we'll be dealing with some rain. It doesn't look to be a perfect weekend weatherwise, but it's far from a washout. If there are any changes I'll let you know.

Your 9-2-5 Forecast

I haven't done this in a while but here we go. Once again, I've decided to post the 9-2-5 forecast here on the blog. Why don't I do it that often? The reason is that the 9-2-5 is really just a "rough estimate" of the day ahead. If forecast models were really that accurate I'd be out of a job. Luckily for me they're not and an hourly breakdown of the day is still very tough to nail down...but I love giving it a shot, so here we go. Expect increasing cloud cover tonight with a mix of sun and cloud early tomorrow morning. By 9am I expect very little sunshine with a slight chance of a shower. Late tomorrow morning I do expect rain and there is the chance of an afternoon thunderstorm by 3pm. By 5pm the rain should start to taper off and we may see some sunshine before 7pm. This is good news for anyone planning on attending the Little Lake Music Festival in Del Crary Park...although I'd bring the umbrella just in case. Keep in mind that our national weather service (Environment Canada) is calling for a 60% chance of showers so there is no guarantee for rain...but I do expect at least a shower or two.