Last week’s forecast was a bit of mixed bag, accuracy-wise. Lucky for us the forecast turned out better than expected. We did see cold air move in during the first half of the forecast period, with some of the coldest air of the winter dropping temperatures into the mid-minus-30s last Friday morning. The expected Alberta clipper did move through our region to the north, but this system was able to draw much warmer air northward than initially forecast, resulting in milder temperatures. These milder temperatures then stuck around much longer than anticipated. If you’re going to get a forecast wrong, this is not a bad way to do it.
For this forecast period we will start off with very mild temperatures across our region. Expect daytime highs to flirt with the 0 C mark on Wednesday as an upper ridge of high pressure bubbles northward. This upper ridge looks as if it will quickly collapse back to the south on Thursday, allowing a westerly to northwesterly flow to establish itself across our region. This will allow cooler air to begin working its way back into our region. Expect daytime highs to slowly cool on Thursday after a warm start to the day, with Friday seeing this cooling trend continue. It does not look like it will get that cold, though, with daytime highs on Friday expected to be around -14 C and overnight lows falling to around -20 C.
Over the weekend and into the first half of the week of Feb. 13, it currently looks like we will see a continuation of the westerly to northwesterly flow, which should result in near-average temperatures. We could see a few chances for a light dusting of snow as a couple of weak areas of low pressure quickly zip eastward through our region.
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Looking further ahead there are currently no signs of any strong outbreaks of cold air, or any significant storm systems impacting our region. As always, that is a long way off and you never know when Mother Nature might change her mind.
Usual temperature range for this period: highs, -19 to -4 C; lows, -31 to -13 C.
