May is just around the corner, but winter isn’t finished with southern Manitoba.
A slow-moving Colorado low means winter storm and snowfall warnings are blanketing much of the province and stretching east into northwestern Ontario.
Environment Canada meteorologist Chris Stammers says the agency expects 10 to 20 centimetres of snow in most regions, including Winnipeg, throughout Thursday.
“It does look like things have maybe trended downward a little bit, which is good news for most people, but here in the city we had a bit of a dusting overnight and a bit of a break now before some more pushes in around noon,” Stammers told 680 CJOB’s The Start.
“We’ll have some moderate to heavy snow this afternoon into the evening.”
The good news: because the city is seeing above-zero temperatures, the unseasonable white stuff isn’t going to stick around for long.
“When you’re right around zero, you’ll get a lot of melting occurring, and we’re right around 1 or 2 degrees today so a lot of it will melt on contact,” Stammers said Thursday.
“But certainly once you get a bit of a layer, it will start to accumulate.”
City crews, which were just beginning road sweeping before the snowfall, have been busy overnight after having to suddenly switch gears.
Public Works’ Ken Allen said drivers shouldn’t have issues on main city routes.
“Because of good old Mother Nature, now we’re transitioning back to a little bit of winter operations today and tomorrow,” he said Thursday.
“We were salting our regional network, so that includes our main routes and our bridges and underpasses, … so all those streets that had water on them this morning, all of those main routes, that’s where our salting trucks have been and really improved conditions.”
Allen said the city is keeping an eye on conditions throughout the day, with the additional snow in the forecast for Thursday afternoon, and crews will adjust accordingly.