Colleen Bready's Forecast: Extreme cold easing, but chill continues

If you step outside on Monday afternoon in southern Manitoba or northwestern Ontario, you will feel the chill, to be sure. The extreme cold over the last few days, though, has eased up considerably.

Daytime highs across the region will come close to the mid-minus teens this afternoon. Some light snow in the southwest will end, as the sunshine in the southeast gives way to cloudier skies.

It’s a different story for the northern half of the province today.

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), a southward-slumping ridge of high pressure over the Northwest Territories has delivered a fresh blast of arctic air.

It is so cold that temperatures will fall this afternoon, deep into the -20s, even -30s, accompanied by lighter winds and bone-chilling wind chill values in the -30s and -40s. Frostbite can happen in minutes in such conditions.

ECCC has issued extreme cold warnings for the Brochet and Tadoule Lake regions.

The weather agency says that western Manitoba could come close to -40 wind chill values by Tuesday morning but doesn’t feel extreme cold warnings are necessary at this point.

We will not see such warnings issued for Winnipeg on Monday night or on Tuesday.

The forecast overnight is low -23 C, which is slightly above normal for this time of year.

The temperature will only rise a handful of degrees on Tuesday to -18 C under a mix of sun and cloud in the afternoon. The normal early January high is -13 C.

Look for a gradual mid-week warm-up before shooting up to -5 C on Thursday with light snow expected.