By Liam Verster

Rainy Weekend

Sporadic yet excessive rain, possible thunderstorms, in the weekend forecast

Jun 12, 2020 | 1:09 PM

Starting Friday afternoon and continuing through Wednesday morning, Grande Prairie and the surrounding region are expected to get hit with excessive rainfall.

Between 25 and 50 millimetres of rain is expected to fall over the course of five days.

Doug Gillham, a meteorologist with The Weather Network, says it won’t be coming down all at once.

“First, a round of rain and possibly thunderstorms through later [Friday] through the evening and into the overnight, and then much of Saturday is rain-free. Then widespread rain and thunderstorms will track across the region late Saturday, Saturday evening, and most of the night, and even some rain lingering into Sunday morning.

“Then that rain moves out, really moves well to the North of the region. And then dry weather, but temperatures will be on the cool side of seasonal. Dry for a while on Monday then some more rain moves in on Monday night and into Tuesday.”

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Gillham says while most of the region will see at least 25 millimetres, some spots may have more soaking downpours and therefore record more rainfall.

He says it’s not unusual to see multi-day rain events this time of year, as both June and July are typically rainy months, with an average of 76 millimetres of rainfall.

“So, it’s on the wet side of normal to get maybe 50 to 75 percent of your monthly rainfall in a few days, it’s a lot of rain, but it’s not something that hasn’t happened many many times in the past.”

He adds that, in June 2016, over 160 millimetres of rain fell over the course of the month.

Gillham also says, looking at the soil moisture levels, some parts of the region are quite dry, while others are rather wet.

While the rain may cause some issues with farms over the weekend, the weather will break next week, and a warm, dry stretch is expected. Gillham says the temperature should rise above seasonal by the time Father’s Day weekend rolls around.

“It’s been a cool start to the month of June, and cooler than seasonal temperatures continue through the middle of next week. That takes us past the middle of the month, but it looks like as we get into the official start of summer, it will feel like summer, at least for the first week.”

Heading into July, Gillham says temperatures will trend back down to seasonal of 20 to 22 degrees. The forecast for July and August calls for near-normal temperatures this summer across the region. The precipitation is also expected to be near the seasonal average through the summer as well.