Prairie Pest Monitoring Network Blog: Weekly Update (May 18, 2016; Wk 03)

2016 Wind Trajectories - High altitude air masses originate from southern locations and continuously move northerly to Canadian destinations. Insect pest species such as Diamondback moth and Aster leafhoppers, traditionally unable to overwinter above the 49th parallel, can utilize these air masses in the spring to move north from Mexico and the United States (southern or Pacific northwest). Data acquired from Environment Canada is compiled by Olfert et al. (AAFC-Saskatoon) to track and model spring high altitude air masses with respect to potential introductions of insect pests onto the Canadian prairies.

Reverse Trajectories track arriving air masses back to their point of origin while Forward Trajectories predict favourable winds expected to arrive across the Canadian Prairies.

This week, Reverse Trajectories (RT) originating from southwest USA and Mexico have crossed over more than half of the prairie locations (18 of 29 locations). This week, first reports of these RT’s occurred for Russel MB, Gainsborough SK, Yorkton SK, Grenfell SK, Watrous SK, and Kindersley SK.