Monday, July 09, 2012

Cooler east - warmer west

Montreal was a comfortable 14C this morning as strong high pressure slowly drifts from west to east across the province this week. It was downright cold in some locations with Saranac Lake, NY in the Adirondacks recoding a low of 3C (39F). Temperatures will moderate across Ontario and Quebec from the record values of last week to more seasonable highs of 25C up to 30C by weeks end. Nothing but sunshine is in the forecast through Saturday. The heat and humidity has been pushed back south into the middle Atlantic states where more severe thunderstorms occurred over the weekend with at least fatality and at over 70,000 more without power in New Jersey alone.

Meanwhile the heat will begin to surge out of the desert southwest and across the plains into southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Temperatures will approach 115F in Arizona, Nevada and interior California this week with 100's surging north into Montana. In southern Saskatchewan we are looking at highs of 32 to 35C (90-95F).

Ten year low water levels on St. Lawrence River
The heat and dry weather in Quebec and especially Ontario has resulted in very low water levels on the St. Lawrence River around Montreal. The low water is creating difficult travel for pleasure craft with concerns that it will begin to affect commercial shipping. Additional concerns exist for the quality of the water with and increase in turbidity and bacteria levels. This will affect area beaches and more importantly could affect our drinking water. This is a developing story that you will here more on in the coming days. No rain is forecast through the end of the week with only spotty showers the week after.

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