Snowy weather set to return tonight..

After a couple of spring-like days over the Red River valley that saw the snowpack virtually disappear with temperatures in the +8-13C range, wintery weather is set to return by this evening as a weather system crosses southern Manitoba. Snow is expected to develop across the Red River valley by early this evening as the system gets organized, with a risk of some freezing rain or ice pellets at the onset. Snow will continue tonight into Saturday morning with accumulations of around 5 cm by the time it tapers off. As the system moves into NW Ontario Saturday, gusty northwest winds of 30 to 50 km/h will develop over southern MB with temperatures near the freezing mark. Clearing skies are expected for Sunday with above normal temperatures into early next week.

UPDATE: 8 am Nov 26th: 6.4 cm of snow at my place since last evening. 6 cm snow on ground. Snowfall total since Nov 1st: 22 cm. Normal Nov snowfall: 21 cm.

Record mild day over parts of southern MB.. more records likely Thursday..

It was a mild day over southern Manitoba today with plenty of sunshine and a southwest flow tapping a mild Pacific airmass spreading across the Prairies. Temperatures rose to the 7C mark in Winnipeg, even with a coating of snow on the ground, while temperatures soared into the double digits over the snowfree southern Red River valley. Gretna at 12.4C set a new record for November 23rd, beating the previous record high of 7.2C in 1962. Pinawa (6.5C), Gimli (7.6C) and Fisher Branch (8.6C) also set new record highs today. Further south Grand Forks soared to a record 14.4C. More records are likely Thursday over southern MB as the mild airmass remains over the area, with highs of 7-10C over the northern RRV, and 10-13C over the south. For Winnipeg, a high of +8C is forecast Thursday, which would be a record high for November 24th (currently 7.2C set in 1907)

Cooler but above normal weather is forecast for Friday, before a system brings some snow to southern MB Friday night into Saturday with a few cm possible.

UPDATE: (Thu Nov 24th) Winnipeg Airport hit 9.7C this afternoon.. easily beating the previous record high of 7.2C for the day. Even milder readings were found over the western Red River valley including Portage, Carman, Morden and Gretna at 12C. At least 7 record highs were set across southern MB this afternoon. MB hot spot was Cypress River at 12.5C. Note that Winnipeg's latest double digit temperature was an 11.7C reading on Dec 6 1939.

Nice warmup on the way this week

If the cold weather this weekend was a little too early for your liking, take heart.. warmer weather is on the way across the Prairies this week. A surge of mild Pacific air will push into Alberta Monday and then spread into southern SK and southern MB Tuesday into Wednesday, pushing temperatures above the freezing mark once again. The mild weather is forecast to continue through the end of the week before a brief cooldown on the weekend.

Clipper to bring more snow by Thursday night.. colder weather for the weekend..

An Alberta clipper system is forecast to track across southern Manitoba Thursday night bringing a band of light to moderate snow mainly along and north of the TransCanada corridor. Snow from this system will spread into western Manitoba Thursday afternoon and push into the northern RRV Thursday evening. Snowfall amounts of 2-5 cm are likely by Friday morning with 5-10 cm possible over the Riding Mtns and southern Interlake. (see attached HPC probability map of snowfall>= 5 cm) The snow should pull off into NW Ontario Friday with northerly winds bringing in colder weather for the weekend. High temperatures will only reach the -8C range while overnight lows drop into the minus teens.. with -20C possible in some areas.

Weekend storm system brings first significant snowfall across southern Manitoba

The storm system that tracked across southern Manitoba over the weekend brought the season's first snowfall to much of southern Manitoba, including Winnipeg and the Red River valley last night. Light rain yesterday changed to snow in the evening and continued overnight bringing a coating of about 3-4 cm of wet snow to Winnipeg by Monday morning. The heaviest snowfall with this storm system however was concentrated towards the SK border where 20-30 cm of snow was recorded near the Swan River area beginning Saturday night. Here are some snowfall reports from the latest storm..

Mafeking .............. 28 cm (between Swan River and The Pas)
Cowan ................. 28 cm (east of Swan River)
Swan River ........... 20 cm
Roblin .................... 17 cm
Gilbert Plains ........ 17 cm (west of Dauphin)
Grand Rapids ........ 14 cm
Elkhorn ................... 14 cm
Rossburn ................ 14 cm (western Riding Mtn Park)
Oakbank ................. 6 cm
Winnipeg ................ 3 cm (Rob's Obs)
Steinbach ............... 2 cm