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Ice-cold temperatures likely to keep a firm grip on Eastern Canada until April

For everyone in eastern Canada hoping for an early spring: Don’t hold your breath.

It appears the below-average temperatures the region has been suffering through since the start of 2015 will continue – likely until April, at least.

“The below-seasonal pattern looks to persist well into March,” said Dayna Vettese, meteorologist with The Weather Network, “and the focus of the cold will likely shift a bit west to include the Prairies, but it looks like this cold pattern for the Great Lakes region is here to stay for the next several weeks.”

The culprit for all this misery has to do with the polar vortex – a mass of swirling, frigid air above the North Pole and the orientation of the jet stream, which will continue to pump down waves of arctic air into southeastern Canada. Weather models are suggesting by this weekend temperatures will plummet by as much as 20 degrees below normal.

“In the near term, we expect two shots of arctic air over the next seven days with the first one arriving Wednesday night and Thursday followed by a second, even colder air mass late in the weekend,” said Brett Anderson, chief meteorologist with Accuweather.com.

“What will make these two air masses stand out is the fact that it will be windy as well, leading to wind chills in the -20 to -40 range, especially during the second cold shot.”

Adding to the cold effect, Anderson points out, is the fact that the ice covering the Great Lakes is averaging 20 to 30 per cent above normal.

“And with the expected weather pattern into March we believe that the ice will hold on longer than usual and thus the lake surface temperatures will remain colder than average for the spring which will have an additional cooling influence on areas close to the lake shore,”

Southern Ontario will be getting a short reprieve from the mind-numbing cold temperatures over the next couple of days before dropping back into the deep-freeze.

Extreme cold weather warnings for the city of Toronto and the rest of the region will likely return later this week, as the mercury plunges to well below average, and there appears to be no real end in sight for the arctic onslaught. This coming weekend, some of the coldest air across the entire Northern Hemisphere will be centred over the Great Lakes.

“The extreme cold is courtesy of Siberia as the frigid temperatures will make their way across the North Pole and settle itself over parts of Canada including the Great Lakes,” Vettese said.

“We’ll be dealing with cold temperatures and frigid wind chills this weekend with daytime highs struggling to reach -15 C this weekend.”