It’s a far cry from the images surfacing from this past weekend from points West, but Brandon was on the receiving end of its first dusting of snow on Monday evening that may not have been far off of the city’s September 30th record.
With temps hovering around the freezing mark, precipitation that had been falling as rain for much of the day transitioned to flurries just before 7:30pm (for those scoring at home, the attached shot from the eBrandon webcam timestamped the transition toward the first flakes at 7:24 at the Corral Centre area).
Though no accumulations had been noted as of the time of this post in the city, areas further to the West including Virden and Hamiota did receive a small visible blanket of white. In an eBrandon discussion post a member noted some roads in the region being marked as partly snow covered/slushy on the Provincial road conditions map.
Further chance of rain showers or flurries was forecast by Environment Canada to continue in Brandon as late as the 11pm hour before giving way to cloud.
Things had gotten decidedly more blah by just after 8pm (there's a Corral Centre in there somewhere)
Though a hint of things to come, snowmobilers and skiers will most likely have to wait several more weeks for any kind of permanent accumulation with temps expected to climb comfortably back to the plus-side by Tuesday afternoon. Friday's current forecast shows a high of 12 degrees with sunny skies.
The record for most snow on September 30 in Brandon is 0.5cm. For those with memories as selectively short as yours truly, this evening’s first flakes actually have us behind last year’s pace with Environment Canada records showing a whopping 8cm having fallen on September 22, 2018.
The area could be said to have dodged a bullet this past weekend with temperatures staying just warm enough for all 17.9mm of precipitation to fall as rain. The picture was quite different in Alberta where Calgary set a single-day September record with 24.6cm of the white stuff on Sunday and some areas further South in the same province saw as much as 95cm.
Last year’s first permanent snow fell on November 6.
Updated: Sept 30, 9:20pm. Added road conditions link