The cold front that pushed through last night will usher in a reinforcing shot of Arctic air which will drop our temperatures back below-normal for the next few days. The weather will remain fairly benign until Sunday when a potent inverted trough low-pressure system will bring snow to Southern Manitoba.
Friday & Saturday
Mostly cloudy with light scattered flurries. Clearing overnight.
-13°C / -21°C
Sunny.
-11°C / -21°C
We’ll see mainly cloudy skies today with some light flurries scattered through the Red River Valley. Temperatures will be quite cool with a brisk northerly wind limiting our daytime high to only –13°C as it ushers Arctic air into Southern Manitoba. Skies will slowly clear out overnight as we head to an overnight low near –21°C. On Saturday we’ll see sunny skies with light winds and a high near –11°C. Temperatures will drop back to around –21°C again Saturday night under clear skies.
Sunday
Sunday will be the most active weather day we’ve had in Southern Manitoba in a while. An inverted trough will push into Southern Manitoba through the morning hours with snow beginning over SW Manitoba through the morning and moving into the Red River Valley by the evening. Right now it looks like this system will develop in a somewhat complex manner; a low pressure system will push out of Montana and intensify as it moves into South Dakota and taps into moister air over the Central Plains. This moisture will surge northwards ahead of the low, which will be rapidly evolving as it interacts with a strengthening shortwave travelling along the MB/ND border. The low will rapidly develop a sharp inverted trough and feed plenty of moisture into it. This is not dissimilar to the setup earlier this month that brought 2 feet of snow to some communities in the SW Red River Valley, but at this point it does not look like this system will be nearly as potent.
At the moment, it appears that most communities near the International Border (from Melita all the way to Emerson) will see between 10–20cm of snow; regions near the western escarpment of the Red River Valley may see an additional 5–10cm above that figure due to localized upslope enhancement from the easterly/northeasterly winds that will set up with this inverted trough. Further north in communities along the Trans-Canada Highway (Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Winnipeg), snowfall accumulations will be quite a bit less. Currently it looks like around 5–10cm can be expected, diminishing to closer to 5cm in the Whiteshell. This is simply a first guess, though; this system may end up developing in a completely different manner should only a few small things change. I’ve erred on the side of caution, giving what I think is a “worst case” scenario. Snowfall amounts could very well be less than mentioned here; we’ll provide an update tomorrow in the comments below updating what this system looks like it’s doing, along with a snowfall forecast map.
Next Week
This system will push off into Ontario on Monday and we’ll begin a slow trek back towards seasonal temperatures through the rest of the week. With warmer air trying to push into the province, it looks like we’ll have several chances to see more snow with as a more unsettled pattern develops.
