Placement is the biggest mistake made when putting up a snow fence. The capacity of the fence and the average amount of blowing snow is important. To estimate the quantity of blowing snow expected in a typical winter, you need to determine the fetch or distance where wind can pick up and then redeposit snow. […] Read more
Tag Archives Daniel Bezte — page 6
Numbers show less sea ice, longer frost-free periods
Let’s take a look at two signs of a warming world: the shrinking arctic sea ice and the lengthening frost-free period on the Prairies. I find it interesting that if arctic sea ice levels are not breaking records, it no longer seems to make it into the headlines. This year’s arctic sea ice minimum was […] Read more
September was warmer than last June
I now have all of September’s weather data from the main reporting stations across the Prairies and we can finally get to our monthly weather review. Let’s start with temperatures and the ranking of mean monthly temperatures across the Prairies. While I knew it was a warm month, some of these values surprised me. The […] Read more
A decent weather station is not that expensive
Here’s a look at what’s available in weather stations according to budget, based on the reviews of other users. This is the category where you find most of the Canadian Tire, Walmart or other big box store weather stations. One weather station seems to dominate, and that is La Crosse. There are several variations of […] Read more
Hotter atmosphere drives extreme rainfall
Three regions had extreme rainfall and flooding over the past few weeks across the globe. In northwest and north-central Africa, unusually persistent and heavy rains caused severe flooding in an area that is usually very dry. In fact, parts of the Sahara Desert and Sahel belt have seen significant rainfall. The second area of extreme […] Read more
On the hunt for a good weather station
My first weather station was a Davis Weather Monitor II and it served me well for a number of years. I then upgraded to a Davis Vantage Pro and had fairly good use out of it, but I did have to replace a few parts and get a battery issue fixed. These were good, reliable […] Read more
August flipped the script with rainfall
We have all the weather data from the main reporting stations across the Prairies, so we can review August weather and then look at the latest three-month forecasts or predictions. Instead of going province by province, I will rank the main reporting sites by mean temperature, how far above or below average it was, total […] Read more
How atmosphere affects extreme rainfall
In the last column, we discussed several factors that can result in extreme rainfall events. Let’s wrap up this topic by looking at different weather patterns that tend to be associated with these events and consider how changing weather patterns might contribute. Let’s first look at some of the rainfall records across southern and central […] Read more
Several factors can contribute to heavy rainfall
Several factors must come together for an extreme rainfall event to occur. Sometimes you need more than one factor and other times, if the factor is strong enough, you just need one. Let’s look at those factors. Atmospheric moisture: For heavy rain, there must be a significant supply of moisture in the atmosphere. When warm, […] Read more
Humidity often overlooked but potentially severe
One summer weather event is regularly overlooked but potentially severe: humidity. By its simplest definition, humidity is the amount of water vapour in the air. The warmer the air, the greater the distance between air molecules and therefore the greater the holding capacity of air for water vapour. Warm air has the capacity to hold […] Read more
