Meteorologist says records could fall Wednesday as temperatures soar

A meteorologist from Environment Canada says there is a good chance we will set a new temperature record on Wednesday. 

The forecasted high for Wednesday is a whopping 7 degrees and Meteorologist Samantha Mauti says “the record for January 31st is 4.5 degrees, which was set in 1993.” 

To give context for how rare these types of temperatures are, Mauti notes “I have only got 10 instances of Steinbach getting above 5 degrees in January, since 1956.” She adds “I only have three instances from 1956 of a January temperature above 6 degrees.” 

Mauti explains why Steinnbach and the rest of southern Manitoba is experiencing such unseasonably warm weather.  

“We're sitting under an upper ridge, which is usually associated with warm temperatures. A normal high temperature for Steinbach is about –11 degrees Celcius for that end of January, early February time frame. For the rest of this week, we have temperatures forecast above 0. So yeah, well outside the normal for this time of year." 

Looking ahead, Mauti says we can expect temperatures to dip closer to zeros on Thursday and Friday, then spike back up to five degrees on Saturday. She notes next week should be cooler, but still above average.