A taste of spring for Canada’s final days of winter, but another blast of winter will follow

After enduring some brutal weather so far this winter, it's looking like Canada is going to finish off the season with a little preview of spring.

It's not exactly going to be sweltering across Canada this week, since that would truly be strange for this time of year. In fact, temperatures are actually still going to be below normal for nearly the entire country. However, compared to the bitter cold that many Canadians have been putting up with from this winter, the days leading up to March 20th are going to make it feel like spring has already arrived.

Right from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland, daily highs are going to climb above zero in most regions, possibly getting up to around 10 C on Wednesday for western and central regions, and for the latter half of the week in the east. Only southern Manitoba seems to be the hold-out, with just a high of zero forecast on the first day of spring.

For some areas, though, it's not going to be all good news this week. A storm system expected to pass over the Great Lakes on Wednesday isn't going to let Ontario get out of winter unscathed. Temperatures will still seem spring-like, but this storm is likely to dump significant amounts of snow over northern Ontario, and snow or a mix of rain and snow over southern regions of the province.

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Although the winter season officially ends this week, and it looks like we'll at least be allowed to ease out of it, don't get lulled into a false sense of security.

This is Canada, after all, and it's rare when we get persistent spring weather starting just because the calendar says winter is over. Even as we transition past the equinox on Thursday, a cold snap is expected to descend over Alberta on Friday and make a slow trek to the east through the weekend and into next week. So, it isn't time to be putting away the parkas, gloves and boots just yet.

(Photo courtesy: The Canadian Press)

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