Weekend Update

The mid-day sun hangs low on the horizon near frigid Fairbanks, Alaska yesterday. Temperatures were as cold as -49F in Alaska as record setting cold dominates the state and south into the Yukon and western Canada.

It is a chilly morning in Montreal, one of the coldest of the season at -3C, but nothing compared to western Canada. The rain of yesterday has left some frozen puddles around, but otherwise it is a bright morning. Any leftover snow flurries are over the Townships and into northeast Vermont. There is also lake effect snow falling east of Lake Ontario and Erie with a good 20cm (8 inches) in spots around the Tug Hill of western New York. Our weekend forecast looks ok for late November with a partly sunny, dry day expected Saturday with a gusty southwest wind and warming temperatures to 10C. Low pressure and a cold front will approach southern Quebec on Sunday with widespread showers and windy conditions. Temperatures will drop quickly late Sunday so we could see a brief period of flurries once again before precipitation ends overnight Sunday. The start of next week looks dry and seasonably cool at this time.

ARCTIC CHILL: If you want the really cold air look out west across the Prairies, Rockies and into Alaska. The cold is setting all kinds of records for so early in the season. It is -16C this morning in Edmonton, and that is the best they will do. As the cold air deepens, temperatures will continue to drop today to overnight lows of -24C. Meanwhile Alaska is downright frigid. Yesterday Fort Yukon dropped to -46F, while Fairbanks set a new record cold "high" of -30F, that is 39 degrees colder than the normal high. It smashed the previous record of -19F set in 1904. The overnight low there was also a new record, -41F, the old one being -39F established in 1969. Temperatures will moderate slightly over the next few days.