Well, it took awhile, but it looks like spring has finally sprung in Winnipeg and southern MB as sunny skies and temperatures in the mid teens signalled the warmest weather here since last October (6 months ago!)   And the springlike weather is expected to continue this weekend with temperatures in the upper teens, possibly closing in on 20C in some localities!  The only fly in the ointment will be gusty southerly winds accompanying the warm temperatures over the weekend, especially Sunday with southerly winds gusting to 50-60 km/h. Otherwise, it'll be a great weekend to enjoy the outdoors like riding your bike, getting some swings in at the driving range, or starting on that spring cleaning! Temperatures are expected to cool off to around 7-10C Tuesday, but then should rebound into the upper teens to 20C by next Thursday again. So spring is here.. at least for the next little while! Enjoy! 

Cold start to April.. spring slow to arrive this year

Those hoping for a quick transition to spring as the calendar switches to April are going to be disappointed as the Prairies remain stuck in a below normal temperature pattern for at least the next 1-2 weeks.  The colder than normal pattern will mean that an extensive lingering snowpack over the Prairies and northern Plains will be slow to disappear, making it even harder for warmer temperatures to surface. As a result, expect a slow and gradual melt this year.. likely leading to the latest snowmelt here since 2014. Precipitation over southern MB looks below normal as well as the main storm track sets up south of the international border, for this week anyways. Models are hinting of a more active pattern setting up next week over the southern Prairies which may bring some accumulating snow into southern MB again by early next week (ugh!)  

As of April 1st, the highest temperature in Winnipeg so far this year has been only +5.4C (March 27th) with no hint of double digits temperatures in the near future.  In comparison, Winnipeg had already reached double digits twice in March of 2017 (including 12.3C on March 29th), and another 10 times in the first 2 weeks of April 2017 (19.8C on Apr 8th). We'll need to lose a lot more snowpack before we see temperatures like that this year.  Note that normal highs in early April in Winnipeg are +5C, rising to +10C by mid month and 15C by April 30th.