Even with autumn in full swing, the region has been seeing warmer than normal temperatures but cold arctic air could bring the first snowfall of the season this weekend.
Environment Canada is calling for a 30 per cent chance of snow or rain each night from Saturday to Monday with temperatures as low as 1 C in Greenstone with Marathon seeing a chance of snow or rain Monday night with a low of 3 C.
Meteorologist David Phillips said the forecast is due to a polar vortex bringing a dramatic change to the warm autumn we’ve seen so far.
“We had places that in the north with temperatures well up into the high 20s. My gosh, Upsala, we saw a temperature up to 33 degrees. It led the country that day. I think it was on Monday or Tuesday that was the warmest temperature,” he said.
“There's been a rapid cool off. And as this Arctic air has replaced some of the more southern air and so we see in the forecast, there could be the “F” word, frost in some areas, but we also see the letter “S”, snow and then snow flurries, or at least in the northern part we see a chance of rain or snow.”
Phillips said that the region should be seeing a lot more frost and snow toward the end of the month although it most likely won’t stick around due to warm temperatures.
“We're seeing for example in Hudson Bay, very warm waters, like a hot tub there. James Bay is the same, the lakes and the land has been very warm. A lot of residual heat and that's why the arctic air can't really get a strong foothold. It seems to be tempered by the residual of warmer weather leftover from the summer,” he said.
“After all, we had in Canada, I'm speaking nationally, the warmest summer on record.”
This is far from the earliest that the area has seen snowfall with average lows around thanksgiving hovering around 0 and frequent autumn precipitation.
“It should happened already. I've seen some places, for example in Sioux Lookout that on this time of the year you've already had snow dumps of 18, 19, 20 centimetres of snow, so having it this time a heavy amount is not is not rare,” said Phillips.
“But even those large amounts rarely do they hang on because of the fact that this is the transition month of October. It is where summer wants to hang on and winter wants to get a foothold. And so you play that kind of game back and forth and up and down.”
