Fast Alberta Clipper expected to Impact Southern Manitoba, extreme cold weather to follow. Bundle Up!

Folks of Southern Manitoba get ready to experience another round of colder than average weather, an Alberta Clipper is poised to move through southern sections of Manitoba including central parts of the prairies which will bring a blast of winter weather before a transition over to much colder than average weather pattern for the week ahead . Find out what this will mean for us in the latest blog. 

Southern Manitoba will be impacted by a clipper system this evening into the overnight. Tonight a warm front will be moving through southern Manitoba along with it a batch of moderate heavy snow will accompany blowing snow moving through the south, with total snowfall amounts by morning accumulating to about five to 10 centimeters especially in the northern red river valley and the interlake regions, there will be a risk of freezing rain as well as the band moves through from west to east during the overnight. General amounts of two to four centimeters can be expected S of the Trans Canada Highway with new model runs showing the heavier snowfall amounts occurring north of highway 1. There will be a risk of freezing rain or freezing drizzle across the South given that temperatures are fairly close to the freezing mark. Overnight low temperatures for the southwest part of the province will rise to above zero by morning with majority of the rest of the South are seeing overnight low temperatures in the low to mid minus single digits generally from 0 to plus two degrees in southwestern Manitoba and areas of the SE seeing overnight low temperatures between minus two to minus seven degrees Celsius.

During the day on Monday a majority of the South will be in a southerly flow most models are diverging on the overall solution of a warmer air mass enveloping much of southern Manitoba including areas South of the Interlakes. There is a possibility that we could be seeing a swath of temperatures between five and 10 degrees celcius over the red River Valley areas to the east and to the West of the Red River Valley may see temperatures in the mid to high plus single digits. It also appears that the snow and blowing snow will clear the region by the morning hours with a mix of sun and cloud possible by the afternoon. However some of their models are continuing to show mainly cloudy skies during the afternoon so the high temperatures will be highly dependent on how much cloud cover can clear, that is why I'm going to side with a more moderate temperature outlook preferred to the warmer one so I would generally expect that we will not exceed 5 degrees for a majority of the area. 

(Above): A very very cold Arctic air mass is expected to invade Southern Manitoba with overnight low temperatures expected to drop well below normal with the majority of our regions seeing overnight lows in the low to mid minus 20s and areas of the southeast and the high minus teens. There will also be windchill values forecast to be in the low to mid minus 30 degrees celsius range areas north of the Trans Canada Highway can expect to be seeing the worst of the cold with those regions seeing windshield values in the upper minus 30s over the lakes specifically lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipeg you may be seeing wind chill values around minus 40 degrees Celsius. This is going to be a very cold quick shot of Siberian air which normally does not seem to happen during a El Nino winter. There still is some uncertainty of whether or not environment Canada is going to issue an extreme cold warning for this cold blast however the good news is that this does not appear to be a persistent cold Arctic air outbreak .

Tuesday: The extreme cold appears to likely stay in place with high temperatures on the day Tuesday only staying in the upper to mid minus teens. Areas north of highway 1 will see high temperature values in the low minus 20C range, with the combined windchill it''l feel Closer to the low minus thirties and high minus twenty degrees celsius range there are some areas may escape that and only see low minus twenty degrees Celsius wind chills during the afternoon on Tuesday. Tuesday night: it appears that the extreme cold will stick around with majority of much of southern Manitoba seeing overnight low temperatures in the upper minus 20's and low minus 30's, the colder values appear to be in the interlake regions, there will be widespread lows in the mid to upper minus 30's and low minus 40C range in the extreme southwest part of Manitoba. 

Wednesday: Much of southern Manitoba will be on the start of the reprieve on the day Wednesday with high temperatures finally getting into the well not as warm as it should be but still more typical of late January early February with values in the mid to upper minus teens in some areas of the southwest Parklands seeing high temperatures in the low minus twenties. There would still be a westerly wind which will help moderate the overall temperatures however I'm not seeing much of a change in the upper atmospheric pattern which will allow for that warmth to return. Overall windchill values in the low minus 20's are likely with colder than -25C values likely in the parklands of Manitoba. Overnight low values on Tuesday night will likely drop down into the low minus 20s in southeastern Manitoba and the upper minus teens in southwestern parts of Manitoba windshield values will be in the minus 30s with upper minus twenty wind chills in the southwest .

Second Half Of the Week: Much warmer air will likely infiltrate southern sections of Manitoba Thursday into Friday with a return of a westerly flow aloft overall highs will return back to where they have been for the last couple of weeks, with values in the low to mid minus single digits and some regions likely having a shot of seeing temperatures above 0C.  there are no signs that the cold weather we are getting this week will persist into the weekend. There is also strong confidence based on the ECMWF HI Res model of this warm weather pattern sticking around, other models have been unable to capture the warmth that we have been seeing over the last few months, its been one of those winters where Manitoba has been under the grips of a pretty strong El Nino weather pattern. Which is actually why I was going to quickly mention that, if it wasn't for El Nino the extreme cold occurring this week would have been a pretty regular ocassion across our region.