It’s been a chilly start to 2025, but Winnipeg is expected to get a bit of a break from the extreme cold in the near future.
David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, told 680 CJOB’s The Start that the cold weather we’ve experienced is actually fairly typical for this time of year — we’ve just had unseasonably warm Januarys recently.
This time last winter, he said, Winnipeg had seen only one day with temperatures below -20 C. This winter, we’ve already had 14.
“Last year, you began the year with the warmest winter on record, you ended it with the warmest fall on record,” he said, “and for the whole year — 12 months — I think there were only two months that… were sort of what I’d call ‘normal’, and the others were warmer than normal.”
Phillips said an Arctic air mass continues to hang over the province, but as it moves out, above-average temperatures are expected to move in.
“We see some temperatures that are going to be even single-digit negative values,” he said.
“We don’t see any melting temperatures but certainly temperatures that may be four or five degrees warmer than you’d expect for this time of the year.
“I think this week we’re seeing kind of a… rehearsal for what we’re going to see the rest of the winter.”
The forecast for the winter is a boring one for Manitoba, Phillips said — not too cold, not too warm, what he calls “Goldilocks kind of weather.”