A broad trough of cold air aloft is set to park itself over Manitoba the next couple days, preventing any warmer air from spilling eastwards and keeping us cool, cloudy and slightly snowy.

A weak, broad upper trough will build over the province as a northerly at all levels provides cold air reinforcement. The general instability produced by the trough, combined with a slowly advancing cold front over the Interlake and a weak shortwave sliding across SW Manitoba from Saskatchewan, will produce plenty of cloud and occasional flurries. None of these features should generate significant snowfall, reflected by the generally meagre amounts produced by the model (<1mm of liquid equivalent over Southern Manitoba). Temperatures will remain relatively mild, moderated by the cloudy skies we’ll see for the rest of the week. Daytime highs should sit right around -5°C and overnight lows should be right around -10°C.

The cold front, after staying relatively stagnant for a few days, will push southwards this weekend as an upper trough swings southwards out of the Arctic. This should provide us with some sunny skies, but drop our temperatures down in the the -10°C to -15°C range for daytime highs with overnight lows closer to -20°C. By the end of the weekend, Southern Manitoba has another chance at snow, as a moderately strong low pressure system sweeps across the Northern Plains.

The general long-range forecast shows that after this slightly-above-average temperatures week is over, we’ll switch back into a slightly below-normal temperature pattern with daytime highs on the cold side of -10°C, with the possible return of overnight lows south of -25°C. Will March come in like a lion? We’ll have to wait and see…