Southern Manitoba has a long stretch of benign, significantly cooler than normal[1] weather ahead as a large upper-level low entrenches itself over Hudson Bay.
A large storm that pushed up through the eastern United States late last week has stalled out over Hudson Bay and is all set to make things miserable for us over the next couple weeks. Temperatures won’t be quite so bad to start the week thanks to a somewhat disorganized upper-level flow over the Eastern Prairies, but things will go from “disappointing” to “cabin fever” mid -week as a pipeline of Arctic air sets up and daytime highs plummet back below -20°C.[2]
There will be a slight chance of a flurry this morning as some of the last remaining cloud clears out from the Red River Valley and then we’ll see mainly sunny skies through most of the day as the temperature climbs up to around -16°C. The wind should be a little lighter than the past few days out of the west/northwest at 20-30km/h. Temperatures will drop to around -25°C tonight under clear skies.
Tuesday will bring colder weather with a high only around -21 or -20°C under mainly sunny skies and with breezy winds at 30-40km/h out of the northwest. Temperatures will drop to around -25°C overnight with some cloud pushing into the Red River Valley as a weak low pressure system approaches from the north. We’ll see a slight chance of flurries late overnight into Wednesday morning before the cloud clears out and we’re left with mainly sunny skies. Winds will start off relatively light but increase to north/northwesterly at 30-40km/h again once the cold front passes through. Temperatures will dip down to around -31°C on Wednesday night under clear skies.
Things look to remain cold for the foreseeable future with below-normal temperatures being forecast by the NAEFS all the way to two weeks out. In addition to the cool temperatures, things should be fairly benign weather-wise with no significant storm systems in the near future. It looks like there may be a couple cm of light snow on Friday as a weak inverted trough slides across Southern Manitoba, so we’ll keep an eye on that and how things develop. No big storms on the horizon, so just bundle up and enjoy the sunshine!