WINNIPEG – WEATHER – An Arctic cold is about to hit hard in Manitoba. A blast of Arctic air is set to begin moving southwards into the Prairies this weekend, bringing bitterly cold conditions to portions of the Prairies for the holidays.
Exposure to extreme cold can be deadly. If your holiday plans include traveling on area highways, making sure your vehicle, and your passengers are prepared for extreme cold is very important.
Friday will bring one last day of relatively mild weather with daytime highs in the -10 to -16C range across much of Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba. Temperatures will be much colder in northern Manitoba behind the Arctic cold front, with highs dropping into the -25 to -28C range near the Nunavut border.
This cold front will move southwards through the weekend and bring a large-scale outbreak of bitterly cold air to the central and eastern Prairies. By Sunday, daytime highs colder than -20C will be seen across much of the southern Prairies, with highs colder than -30C across the northern Prairies.
This cold weather will continue through the holidays and the remainder of next week as the polar vortex becomes entrenched over the region. Overnight lows near or colder than -30C and daytime highs colder than -20C are expected.
With such cold temperatures in place, periods of extreme wind chill will likely occur, with values of -35 to -40 commonplace in the south and -40 to -50 in the northern Prairies.
