Cold Air Strikes Back

The storm moving up through the Great Lakes this evening will continue to produce a narrow band of significant snow just to the north of Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury, Ontario through tonight.

A powerful jet stream just ahead of this storm will help power the southerly winds late tonight and Thursday across Atlantic Canada. Winds could easily gust above 80 kmh in many areas with possible gusts in the 95-100 kmh range from coastal Nova Scotia, coastal New Brunswick, PEI and then up into parts of Newfoundland. There could be some tree damage from this.

Behind the storm, strong west to northwest winds will spread very cold air back into eastern Canada for the rest of the week. By the way, as the temperature drops steadily behind the front tonight we could see a rapid freeze-up of untreated roadways across southwestern Ontario since they could still be wet from the earlier rain.

Bitter cold for tonight across the southern Prairies with actual temperatures falling to the -35 to -40 C. range in some areas.......

Lake effect through Thursday night....

As the cold air pushes across the Great Lakes tonight and through Thursday night the lake-effect machine will get turned on once again. The white shaded areas show the regions where there could potentially be heavier lake-effect snow and whiteout conditions for a period of time. I do not think this will be a major event since the snow bands will be shifting (not staying in one place for an extended period). The main band off Lake Erie should stay just to the south of Buffalo, NY and north of London, Ontario with this type of wind direction.

With the return of cold air and some snow after the short period of milder air and rain I expect eastern Canadian ski areas to resume full snowmaking, which will set them up for a good weekend (including Friday) of skiing and snowboarding.