After a fairly cold start to the week it looks like our weather will return to warmer conditions. The big question is whether we will see any precipitation.

The cold arctic air mass that moved in late last weekend, behind the storm system that brought some significant snow to parts of Saskatchewan and northern Manitoba, will slowly move off to the East during the first half of this week. This will be replaced by an upper ridge of high pressure that should bring a return to above-average temperatures by Wednesday or Thursday. High temperatures look like they’ll be in the mid-teens, with overnight lows in the low single digits.

By Friday we’ll have to watch a large area of low pressure that is forecast to develop to our west. The models have had a hard time figuring out this system, jumping back and forth between the system staying south of us and hitting us directly. Given the more northerly track of our last system I’m going to lean toward cloudy and showery weather moving in on Friday and Saturday. Along with the clouds and showers, temperatures will cool off. Southern regions shouldn’t see any snow from this system, but more northerly regions might.

Next week looks like it will start off on the cool side as another area of cool arctic air looks to be poised to move in once the weekend low moves out. Expect high temperatures for the start of next week to only be in the low single digits, with overnight lows in the -5 C range. Temperatures look as if they will improve as the week wears on, with highs once again making it into the low to mid-teens later in the week.

Usual temperature range for this period: Highs, 3 to 17 C; lows: -7 to +3 C. Probability of precipitation falling as rain: 55 per cent.