Last week’s forecast didn’t turn out exactly as forecast, but the cold air did finally arrive; it just took a couple of extra days to show up. As we’ve seen several times this winter, warm Pacific air won out over colder arctic air, at least for a little while. The main systems developed as expected but the second low, which was to help usher in the colder air, ended up being pushed farther north by the mild air, which delayed the arrival of the cold air.
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This forecast period will start off with plenty of sunshine and relatively cold air as a couple of areas of arctic high pressure slowly slide southeast across our region. The cold weather looks to stick around until about Thursday, with daytime highs in the -10 to -14 C range and overnight lows in the -18 to -24 C range. By Friday the high will have moved off to our southeast and we’ll see a southerly flow of milder air begin. Along with the milder air, we’ll see increasing clouds with maybe the odd flurry. These clouds look like they’ll stick around all weekend as warm and cold air battle each other for dominance.
For the most part, it looks like we should stay on the warm side of this battle, with daytime highs expected to be around -4 C and overnight lows around -10 C. Early next week the weather models show a large area of low pressure developing over the western U.S. This low is then forecast to move toward southern Manitoba by Wednesday or Thursday. Confidence in this storm system is low. Should it develop, we’ll see plenty of warm air move in ahead of it, with rain or showers developing by Wednesday. As colder air works into the system the rain will change to snow, with the best chances of significant snow being over western regions.
Usual temperature range for this period: Highs, -12 to 0 C; lows, -25 to -8 C.
