Weekend snowfall won't stick around, forecast calls for warm, dry weather

With Christmas events underway and little snow on the ground, it looks like we might be relying on Christmas lights and decorations to get us into the holiday mood. 

Brad Vrolijk is a lead forecaster with Environment and Climate Change Canada. 

He says any snow we get this weekend and during the next couple of days will probably melt with daytime highs above freezing for mid-week. 

“After that, it looks like it's a pretty dry pattern right into the beginning of December and just temperatures gradually heading back towards seasonal values, which are generally highs in around -6, -5 and overnight lows in the mid minus teens,” he says. “So at least for the next seven days, 10 days, it doesn't look like we're going to see a major change. And I guess if you can take a positive from it, it's not -30, which is kind of nice.” 

While it might be tough to get into the Christmas spirit while visiting tree farms and picking out the perfect tree, or attending Christmas parties and craft shows, Vrolijk says it is not unusual weather for this time of year. 

He believes it might feel strange though because we did have a fair amount of snow last month, but that did not stick around. 

“We did have that blast of snow and cold weather around Halloween, which was a bit unusual for how cold it was around that time,” Vrolijk says. “Often, it's unusual for us once we get a good coating of snow to lose it, but I guess the warm weather has just been persistent enough this November. Not uncommon. We haven't necessarily broken a lot of records for daytime highs or anything like that. It's just been persistently mild. And so yeah, we were able to erode that snow that fell late October and here we are with bare ground in most places.” 

With little to no snow in the forecast for the next 10 days, can we expect a white Christmas? Vrolijk says, statistically speaking, we should be able to enjoy some snow over the holidays, noting that Christmas is still a month away. 

But if you are waiting for a good snowfall to get you into the holiday mood, you might want to consider putting up some decorations and turning on the Christmas lights. 

“We don't have much snow on the ground and there isn't much in the forecast. I think this year, at least for the early goings, it looks like the Christmas decorations are going to have to do a lot of the heavy lifting,” Vrolijk says. 

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