Saturday, February 11, 2012

Blustery cold weekend

Cold air poured into southern Quebec overnight in response to an arctic front slipping south of the region and into northern New York. The temperature rose to a mild plus 2C (36F) on Friday before slowly falling to around -1C at midnight. The front passed through the region and the temperature tumbled to -7C (19F) in one hour at Trudeau Airport, accompanied by some brief snow and gusty winds producing a windchill of -18C (0F). It has continued to get colder into this morning with current readings of -13C (9F) at the airport and -11C here on L'Ile Perrot. In southern Ontario, Toronto has declared a cold emergency where the temperature is currently -15C.

The sat image above the left from 11am shows a massive winter storm about to affect Atlantic Canada with heavy snow and rain. It will give strong winds and a few clouds to Montreal, but no snow.

Strong low pressure over Atlantic Canada combined with arctic high pressure over Ontario will produce a tightening pressure gradient over Ontario and Quebec. The result will be increasing northeast winds into Sunday here in Montreal. Temperatures will fall to -19C tonight, combined with strong winds increasing to 30 to 50km/h producing dangerous wind chill values of at least -30C (-20 to -25F). A windchill advisory may be needed for a portion of the area for Sunday. Conditions will be mainly dry for the most part with just the occasional flurrie here in Quebec. The heaviest snow with the Atlantic storm will fall over New Brunswick. Meanwhile Windsor, Ontario has about 12cm of snow overnight, and some lake effect snow will continue today of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. Temperatures will moderate on Monday. No big storms on the horizon for Montreal at this time.

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