After a short break from the cold as milder air spilled across the Prairies, significantly colder weather is on it’s way back to the region as a significant Arctic ridge pushes into the Prairies.
Wednesday
Mostly cloudy with patchy light snow.
-16°C / -25°C
The Arctic air will slowly push eastwards across Southern Manitoba today which will offset most of our potential warming today and limit our daytime high to only a couple degrees warmer than we dipped down to overnight. We’ll likely see the temperature climb to about –16°C today, but northerly winds of 20–30km/h will make it feel closer to –25 or –26 this afternoon. In addition to the cooler temperatures, some low-level lift associated with the advancing cold air, combined with the mostly cloudy skies in place over the Red River Valley, will result in patchy light snow for most of the day. As things cool off this evening the thermal profile will become less conducive to snow generation which will help any light snow left taper off. Temperatures will drop to around –25°C as skies clear overnight with wind chill values closer to –35.
Thursday & Friday
Sunny skies will dominate through to the weekend as we remain under the influence of the Arctic ridge. Temperatures will return back to the “bitterly cold” range with daytime highs back below the –20°C mark.
Sunny.
-22°C / -33°C
Sunny. Increasing clouds overnight.
-24°C / -30°C
Temperatures will top out at –22°C on Thursday and then plummet to –33°C on Thursday night. Wind chill may be a concern on Thursday night; if winds climb up to even 15km/h wind chill values will drop to –42 to –45 which is below the –40 threshold for wind chill warnings in Southern Manitoba. Temperatures will rebound to only around –24°C on Friday under sunny skies again. Some cloud will push into the Red River Valley on Friday night as an Alberta clipper pushes into southwestern Manitoba; this will help prevent our overnight low from dropping as much as the night before. Currently it looks that the temperature will bottom out at –30°C but it will likely be short-lived as that cloudy, warmer air pushes eastwards.
