There's good news and bad news in terms of the weather this week.
The good news is that temperatures could inch above zero heading into the weekend.
However, according to Environment Canada meteorologist Erin Staunton, Central Albertans will need to deal with the extreme cold just a little bit longer.
"We'll likely see one more night of extreme cold conditions in the Red Deer/Lacombe area and then getting into the second half of the week, we do expect a pretty significant warming trend. We may even see temperatures get above the freezing mark closer to the weekend," she remarked.
The high for Tuesday is minus 20, however with the wind chill, it will feel like minus 29 this afternoon with frostbite occurring in minutes. The low for Tuesday night is minus 26, feeling like minus 40 overnight with the winds picking up. The high for Wednesday is minus 15 and minus one for Thursday. Friday has a forecasted high of plus five.
She notes Sundre broke a couple of records over the weekend with lows of minus 32.8 and minus 33.8 on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
"We have an arctic ridge of high pressure that's pretty well entrenched over the Prairie provinces and that's just keeping this cold air trapped in place," explained Staunton. "We have a low-pressure system that's expected to come from B.C. later in the week and as that moves into the area, it's expected to help push some of that cold air out of the Prairies."
The normal daytime high for this time of year is around minus 2, while the average overnight low is minus 14.
Click here for the current forecast.
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