The cold weather is here to stay across Southern Manitoba as a continuous northwesterly flow aloft, thanks to the established vortex over Hudson Bay, continues to pump Arctic air southwards.
While temperatures won’t be as cold as was seen across the Prairies over the weekend thanks to a slight moderation of temperatures as the coldest air rotates out of the Prairies into NW Ontario, daytime highs will still be significantly below the normal[1] temperatures for this time of year.
Today will bring mainly sunny skies to Winnipeg with just a few clouds later in the morning and through the afternoon. Skies will likely be a bit cloudier east of Winnipeg in the Red River Valley, but nothing particularly significant is expected in the way of cloud cover as the bulk of it should remain to the north and east of the Red River Valley. Temperatures will climb to around –21°C with fairly light winds which should bring an end to the –40 or colder wind chills early this morning. Expect temperatures to dip to around –24°C tonight with a little more cloud cover moving in.
Tomorrow looks cold again with highs near –20°C or so under mixed skies. A few flurries are possible, particularly through Winnipeg & the eastern half of the Red River Valley. Winds will be a bit breezy out of the northwest at around 20–30km/h which will make it feel a fair bit colder. Skies should clear out tomorrow evening with the winds tapering off as temperatures head to a low of around –27°C.
Wednesday looks like another mainly sunny day with a high near –20°C and winds out of the west at 15–20km/h. The “bigger” story will be on Wednesday night into Thursday morning when a weak system slides across Southern Manitoba, bringing some light snow with it. No significant accumulations are expected, though.
Signs of a Warm-Up in the Long-Range?
There may be a little hope for a reprieve from the cold as long-range forecast models are beginning to show signs that the current pattern may begin to break down next week, allowing some milder air back into the Prairies.
It’s still a little early to say for certain what’s going to happen – the long-range outlooks are only slightly hinting towards above normal temperatures. In general, it looks like we should see a trend next week back towards more seasonal temperatures.
- The normal daytime highs for Winnipeg in January are really just an average of extremes. The record high temperature for January 5th is 6.7°C set in 2012 while the record minimum high temperature is –30.7°C set last year in 2014. When your spread on daytime highs is 37°C, it’s hard to pin down a “normal” or “seasonal” high. ↩
