Canadian Prairies Weather Outlook

June was a sort of chaotic month of weather for the Canadian Prairies and that seemed to show up rather well in the update to the Canadian Drought Monitor.

Outside of a system that brought widespread moderate-to-heavy rainfall from central Alberta through northeast Saskatchewan, precipitation was rather mixed, coming in small batches due to thunderstorms.

While those thunderstorms did have some severe weather at times to them, I do not believe that this year has been any more extreme than any others. And the scattered nature to the thunderstorms has led to a lot of haves and have-nots throughout the region. That usually means that more areas end up with below-normal precipitation than others that end up with above-normal amounts and has caused the drought monitor for the end of June to be quite mixed across the region.

Alberta's Peace region, along with much of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, remain in drought to start July and the primary month for crop development. Only small areas of central and northern Alberta into west-central Saskatchewan are drought-free. Some of these areas saw improvement in drought, but much of it was a continuation of fairly good conditions from the spring.

West-central through northeast Saskatchewan saw some marginal to significant improvements in the drought, which has helped to tame wildfires in the northeast.

But across the Peace region, and much of the south from Medicine Hat to Winnipeg have seen degradation in the drought. The Drought Monitor showcases that the area in southwest Saskatchewan has seen a three-class degradation of drought into the D2-D3 (severe to extreme) drought categories that is certainly having an impact on developing crops in the region. Manitoba is also reporting worsening conditions, though some of these areas recently saw some rainfall in early July.

Drought continues to be the main topic of concern for the Prairies and where it goes from here. The DTN forecast continues to showcase above-normal temperatures through September, though that will not be constant. A cold front that moves through early next week should bring in a shot of cooler air. The precipitation forecast is more mixed, with no clear signals for above- or below-normal rainfall for the rest of the summer.

There continue to be opportunities, as flow from the west and northwest continue to bring systems through the region for the rest of the month. The problem has been that this sort of storm track has continued to have limited available moisture, resulting in isolated or scattered storms, not the widespread type that the region needs.

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John Baranick can be reached at john.baranick@dtn.com

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