Another deep freeze on the way for many Canadians

If you live anywhere from Saskatchewan to the Maritimes, get ready for another blast of frigid cold sweeping across the country this week.

A dip of the polar vortex has already been affecting much of the country over the past week. A powerful wind storm spun up through the prairies and several passes of snowy weather swept through Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. Now, the jet stream is stretching even further to the south, dragging frigid cold along with it. This will push temperatures down into the -20s degrees Celsius and wind chills into the -30s across Saskatchewan, Manitoba and northern Ontario starting on Monday morning. This cold will spread to the south and east throughout the week.

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Chilly weather will greet southern Ontario and southern Quebec for the Monday morning commute. It will not be quite as bad as in the Prairies and northern Ontario, but temperatures will continue to drop throughout the day as this blast of cold presses in. Snow squalls are expected to blow across regions of southwestern Ontario off of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. This will add to the snow that's already fallen over the area during the past few days. Temperatures will reach down to -20 degrees by Tuesday morning, with wind chills around -30 for most of the day and into Wednesday morning.

Nova Scotia and Newfoundland look like they'll be spared the blast of Arctic cold this time, for the most part, but the chills will be spreading across New Brunswick and P.E.I. starting on Tuesday morning. The rest of the Maritimes will still see some wintry weather later in the week.

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The most unusual part of this weather pattern isn't that it's bringing a wintry blast to most of the country. After all, it's winter in Canada. Cold and snow are to be expected.

The unusual part is the extreme up-and-down roller coaster of temperatures that this winter has been delivering so far. It's happened a few times already and as chilly as it's been through the Prairies and the east as of late, it's been unseasonably warm in the west. Temperatures in Alberta have been spring-like for nearly two weeks now and they're expected to climb even higher this weekend. Even the Yukon has been seeing much warmer weather than it usually does. British Columbia seems to be the only part of the country that's been sheltered from all of this, having a fairly seasonable winter so far.

This weather is to be expected when the polar vortex weakens and the jet stream is able to loop far to the south on a regular basis. Yet, it's certainly making an impression this year, as temperature records seem to get broken with each pass.

(Photo courtesy: The Canadian Press)

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