The several weeks of mild winter weather is about to give way to some serious cold.
After seeing daily highs above freezing more often than not over the last two months, the best the thermometer will do this Sunday is -18 C, Environment Canada is predicting.
And it will get worse from there as the high is expected to reach just -24 C on Tuesday before warming up ever so slightly to -18 C by Thursday.
That it's been so warm for so long is the real news as far as Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist is concerned.
"If we had been in this type of weather that we're going to get for say, three weeks, we probably wouldn't be talking about," Lundquist said. "It's because the antecedent conditions have gotten us used to late-winter, spring-like conditions."
The city has been protected from the Arctic air by the location of a storm track.
"The whole storm track has been really far north," Lundquist said. "That does happen but what's unusual is it's continued for a month to six weeks.
"And I'm not sure why. There is natural variability in weather and what goes up, must come down so now the warm air is pulling out and we're getting more of that Arctic air forecast to move in and certainly a return to winter."
The transition from warm to winter will also feature flurries that were to have started last night and continue through to this evening. There is also a chance of flurries on Tuesday.
Norms for this time of year are -12 C or so, but it will still be far away from records for this time of year, which are in the -40 C range.
"Just a regular mid-winter cold snap," Lundquist said.
So far this winter, there have been only two days with overnight lows below -20 C, both in November.
