You just have to love Mother Nature. The weather models predicted an area of low pressure would dive through southern and central Manitoba late last Sunday and into Monday. What the models didn’t predict was just how strong the system would get. They also didn’t do that great of a job predicting the strength of the area of high pressure following behind the low. Combine these two things together and you get a heck of a lot of wind, and that is exactly what we saw with this system, especially over eastern regions.

For this forecast period, the overall weather pattern over North America looks to remain fairly active, but for our region I think things just might quiet down a little bit. Cold high pressure that moved in behind the holiday Monday storm system will be pulling off to the East by Wednesday. This should allow temperatures to begin moderating during the second half of the week. By Friday, high temperatures should be in the -10 C range, with -5 C not out of the question for Saturday or Sunday. A storm system is expected to move by well to our south on Friday. The most we’ll see from this system are some clouds and maybe a flurry or two.

A second system is then forecast to come in off the Pacific and into southern Alberta over the weekend. The weather models all show this system to slide southeast and miss Manitoba, but it’s something to keep an eye on for late Sunday or into Monday. Slightly cooler air is expected to move in behind this system on Tuesday and Wednesday, with highs expected in the -8 to -12 C range. Luckily it looks like the really cold air will stay to our north. So, while it doesn’t look like an early melt will move in, it also doesn’t look like it’ll be teeth-chattering cold either.

Usual temperature range for this period: Highs, -15 to -1 C; lows, -28 to -10 C.