Last week’s forecast turned out pretty good, so let’s hope this week’s forecast fares just as well.

It looks like my gut feeling about cold weather to start the week was correct, but fortunately, it doesn’t look like this cold weather will stick around. By Wednesday a strong area of low pressure will cross through the southern Arctic. The low will develop a strong push of warm air ahead of it and this warm will begin to move into our region on Wednesday.

At the same time it looks like an upper area of low pressure will take up position off the coast of California. This will create a split flow across western North America. The main storm track will be well to our south while a second, much weaker track will be across southern Canada. This means we will see several weak systems move through our region during this forecast period but most of these systems will only bring some clouds and maybe the odd flurry.

More important is that this type of pattern typically locks away the cold air to our north, keeping us in a fairly mild westerly flow. We will likely see high temperatures near the top end of the usual temperature range for this time of the year during most of this forecast period, with the mildest conditions over the southwest.

The only fly currently in the ointment is a possible stronger storm system moving in from B. C. early next week. I do not have much confidence in this system as the weather models have not been very accurate beyond seven or eight days lately.

Usual temperature range for this period: Highs: -20 to -3C. Lows: -31 to -13C.