Winter is coming, slowly but surely, to Prairies: forecast

It’s been a pleasant November across much of the Prairies so far, but the nice weather is about to take a turn to something more familiar for this time of year.

Scott Kehler of WeatherLogics told 680 CJOB that the temperature is expected to drop in southern Manitoba over the next week, with highs by the weekend hitting minus-double digits.

Despite the cooldown, in the near term, the Winnipeg area is only looking at a drop into what is considered normal temperatures for late November.

“Even this week, things are set to start cooling down a bit, and really we’re just returning to normal,” Kehler said.

“A normal high right now is only about -5 degrees.”

Kehler said the region is expected to reach those normal conditions by Wednesday, but snow that had been previously forecast over the next couple of days might not materialize. At least not yet.

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“It looks like most of this snow is going to pass to the south of Winnipeg and even mostly to the south of Manitoba,” he said.

“If you live near the U.S. border, you might get a couple of centimetres of snow … but for the Winnipeg area, it looks like just a dusting, or it could even miss us entirely, actually.”

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That lack of snow, he said, has helped keep the temperatures warmer overall, and as long as the ground stays bare, the region is likely to see more warmer days than cooler ones.

To the west, in Saskatchewan, conditions have been similar, although not quite as extreme as Manitoba has seen throughout the month of November.

Global News meteorologist Peter Quinlan said a large part of that province is looking at a “major cooldown” just around the corner.

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“Winnipeg had record-breaking heat on Sunday, hitting double digits. Saskatchewan was not quite to a record-breaking threshold, but we’ve been looking at daytime highs well above seasonal,” Quinlan said.

“We’re taking five to 10 degrees above average, and way above freezing — 4 to 8 degrees, when normally a daytime high would be -4.

“Things are taking a turn as we continue to work our way through this last week of November. A major cooldown, the biggest blast of Arctic air this season so far, will move in. It will last right through into early December. We’re talking, at times, daytime highs in the minus-teens.”

Quinlan said those predictions encompass most of Saskatchewan, but prolonged cold is in the cards for the northeast of both Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

By the weekend, he said, parts of Saskatchewan will see morning windchills drop to the minus-20 range.

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