Conflicting weather forecasts

Here’s an early season test of weather forecasts. On Monday, the Environment Canada forecast sounded quite favourable. There was 30 to 60 per cent chance of some showers for some of the days later in the week for a number of locations, but it didn’t sound like very much precipitation. By contrast, World Weather Inc. issued a forecast Monday morning that sounded quite ominous. While calling for a pleasant start to the week with a few scattered showers, the Kansas-based forecasting service was calling for a winter storm to slam the Prairies later in the week. The storm, moving from Alberta across Saskatchewan and Manitoba was forecast to start as rain and then switch to snow with significant amounts of both over a large region. World Weather Inc. did note that this was an early forecast and there was still time for the projected path and the precipitation amounts to be adjusted. It’ll be interesting to see today’s forecasts from both Environment Canada and World Weather Inc. A lot of producers subscribe to World Weather Inc. reports by Sean Rocheford and Drew Lerner and they’ve proven to be quite accurate in past years. Here’s hoping this time they’re wrong. A storm is the last thing we need right now. I’m Kevin Hursh.