Some parts of the Northwestern Ontario will more than likely be seeing some much-needed rain this weekend.
The region has had a dry start to summer, which has been "extremely concerning" to local farmers, who said last week that the situation isn't critical at this point, "but we're very close to it."
The dry conditions have led to forest fire concerns, with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry implementing burning restrictions that have been in place through the month.
Environment Canada meteorologist Monica Vaswani said that a low-pressure system developing in the United States could bring some much-needed relief.
“It is going to track right through basically the U.S., Canada, the border along Minnesota and Ontario,” she said. “So there's a good chance that areas, especially along the border, will get some decent rain, it is possible some areas could see amounts exceeding 50 millimeters by the end of the weekend.”
Vaswani said she’s been looking at the amount of rain Northwestern Ontario has seen so far in June and that the amounts are quite low, especially around Thunder Bay.
“We've only had about five millimeters of rain, so practically nothing over the month of June,” she said.
“If you go further west towards Kenora, there was about 15 millimeters, but most of that fell actually [Wednesday], so this is well below the normal amount for June thus far, averaging maybe 10 per cent of your normal rainfall that you would see.”
Any rain that makes it up from the U.S. will likely start Saturda,y with some showers followed by a more persistent rainfall on Sunday. Vaswani said the real question is how far north and west the rain will go and if northern areas will see as much rain as the places close to border.
"Fort Frances is more likely than not, Kenora could be kind of on the border of getting a decent shot of rain versus just a couple of millimeters and even Thunder Bay, actually, you know, current indications are suggesting that they could be as high as maybe 25 millimeters in the Thunder Bay area,” she said.
“But you don't have to go that far north to only get you know only 10, so, it's really going to depend how far north this system can traverse.”
Vaswani said that most communities have between a 40 per cent and 60 per cent chance of showers on Saturday and Saturday night, but by Sunday consistent rainfall is expected.
With files from CKPR Radio
