Another blast of winter, but spring in forecast

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This article was published 12/03/2022 (1332 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba was hit with another bout of blustering winds and freezing cold Saturday, closing the Perimeter Highway for the seventh time this winter due to poor driving conditions.

Fifty-three provincial routes have been shut down this winter overall due to poor driving conditions, compared to 22 in 2020-21 and 31 in 2019-20, according to Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure.

Environment and Climate Change operational meteorologist Brian Luzny called Saturday’s weather “a muted version” of the blowing snow earlier this week, when reduced visibility caused a major multi-vehicle collision on McGillivray Boulevard near the Perimeter Highway.

The city was set to receive between two and four centimetres of snow and hit a -36 windchill earlier in the day.

“Temperatures are warming up, the system is bringing fairly substantial amount of warm air with it… I would expect the wind chills to only improve throughout the day, even though we are getting more wind,” Luzny said.

There’s a silver lining to the chill passing through – it’ll be quick, and it’s looking like next week will begin to feel like the beginning of a Winnipeg spring, and may even hit above-zero temperatures.

“I think we unofficially are starting to hit warmer, back to normal (temperatures) and it looks like for a majority of next week, that the melt might be on, somewhere in the highs near zero to five degrees range,” he said. “So it looks like the cold is unofficially, hopefully over.”

Lifelong Winnipegger Roland Girouard, 63, was taking the snow in stride Saturday afternoon. He said he was happy to hear warm weather was on the horizon, but the cold’s never bothered him anyway.

“I get sick of it, but I get adjusted. It’s all in the mind,” Girouard, who was on his way to Tokyo Smoke down Osborne, told the Free Press.

“It’s winter time, it’s Winterpeg, it’s going to get ugly. But this winter was exceptionally ugly.”