How weekend rain in the Maritimes impacted the summer deficit

Rain reports from the weekend. As the sky clears Monday night, temperatures turn chilly with a risk of frost for parts of New Brunswick.

The Maritimes experienced a bit of relief from an extremely dry summer Sunday into Monday, when a weather front brought rain to most parts of the region.

Rain reports

Much of New Brunswick and large areas of Nova Scotia picked up 10 to 30 mm of rain.

According to reports by a network of volunteer weather observers, the last time New Brunswick had a province wide average of at least 10 mm of rain was on Aug. 18. For Nova Scotia it was Aug. 26 and Aug. 15 for Prince Edward Island.

Some parts of the Maritimes didn’t receive as much rain on the weekend, including P.E.I., around the Bay of Fundy coastline in New Brunswick, and in Nova Scotia’s Cumberland County, Cape Breton, and parts of the southwest.

Deficit continues

Looking at rain totals from June through Sept. 8, and comparing to 30-year averages, much of the Maritimes is running a moisture deficit of 50 per cent or more.

Some of the driest areas include parts of southern New Brunswick, southwestern Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. It should be noted we are only through the first week of September, so the select sites shown here will be making up some ground on the current rain deficit. It would take several more significant rainfalls to even bring the multi-month numbers close to average, and that is very unlikely to occur through the end of this month.

It also does little to help with the impacts the region has already experienced this season in the drought conditions. Impacts ranging from wildfire risk, to agriculture, to mandatory water conservation orders.

Rain outlook for the week

High pressure moves into the Maritimes Monday night and Tuesday. No precipitation is expected through that time.

A low-pressure system moving northward off the U.S. eastern seaboard passes by the Atlantic coastline of Nova Scotia Wednesday night into Thursday. The passage of that system brings a chance of showers to the province during that time. A lower chance of showers for Prince Edward Island. No significant chance of precipitation for New Brunswick.

Following that, high pressure looks likely to be in place again for the weekend. Weather conditions are trending towards being dry for both Saturday and Sunday.