Manitoba braces for cold, stormy weather shift
Southern Manitoba is in for a slap from Old Man Winter on Friday, with a blizzard warning issued for the Red River Valley and a winter storm warning issued for the rest of the south.
The stormy weather is expected to begin early Friday, with snow and wind intensifying during the day, according to CBC meteorologist John Sauder.
The combination of a cold front invading from the north and a Colorado low passing through Minnesota will bring a wintery mix of heavy snow, freezing precipitation, strong northeast winds and low visibilities in blowing snow to much of southern Manitoba Friday and into Saturday, according to Environment Canada.
"By Friday morning, we'll be into some fairly bad conditions on highways with snow and blowing snow," said Sauder, who is forecasting five to 10 centimetres of snow for Winnipeg on Friday and winds gusting to 70 km/h late in the day.
"Right now it look like higher amounts of snow will fall to the east and to the south of us. It will be Saturday afternoon before the storm moves to the east."
When it's over, Winnipeggers will be shoveling away 10 to 20 centimetres of new snow.
And they'll be bundling up to do it. Along with the snow and wind, the temperatures are going to plummet.
Daytime highs starting Saturday and lasting through most of next week are expected to hover around –20 C. The lows are expected to be in the –25 C to –30 C range.
Normal temperatures for this time of year are daytime highs of –13 C and overnight lows of – 24 C.
