I don’t think anybody will be going as far as commissioning an ark build, but Mother Nature has given Brandon and much of Southwestern Manitoba a good shot of what it needs this weekend in the form of rain in parts of each of the past three days.
After 19.9mm reported by Environment Canada between Friday and Saturday, eBrandon rain gauges setup at two points in the city point toward another approx 10mm unofficially on Sunday which would bring us close to 30mm (or more than an inch) since Friday.
The significance of that being that between all of March, April and May up until that point Brandon had seen a grand total of 22.3mm of precipitation. According to weather firm Weather Logics March was the 7th driest on record for the city since 1890 and April the 33rd driest since that time.
On top of being welcome news for growers, the moisture should help alleviate fire risk in the immediate term in the area. As recently as this week parts of Southwestern Manitoba had been in the “extreme” category for fire danger on Natural Resources Canada’s Fire Danger map but this morning now show as “low.”
As the last rain clouds pass by on Sunday morning, Environment Canada is not forecasting further rain today. The long range forecast as of now appears to show a return to drier days with not a mention of precipitation into next weekend.