Warm Good Friday to give way to rain and snow over the Easter long weekend

Foothills County is expected to see April showers and even some April snow over the Easter long weekend.

It will get off to a warm start, with a 17 C high expected on Good Friday, but daytime highs will soon drop just below the April average, with highs of 8 C and 9 C forecasted for Sunday and Monday.

Rain and snow are expected from Saturday through to Monday as well.

"There's a pretty decent chance of some flurries for the Calgary and Okotoks area, especially in higher elevations. Might end up getting somewhere in the range of 10 to 20 millimetres of rain, and somewhere in the range of 5 to 15 centimetres of snow for the area," says Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Stephen Berg.

That precipitation is likely to be patchy, falling more heavily in some areas of the Foothills.

"It's hard to really tell. The models are quite different in how they're generating a forecast at the moment, so the uncertainty is fairly high with amounts... there'd be some locally heavy areas of showers or flurries, and then some other spots within the region might be dry. So it's going to be fairly difficult to pin down numbers and whatnot that way."

With the temperature dipping into the negative degrees overnight, it could make for slick roads.

Those heading west over the weekend are advised to be cautious, as heavier snowfall and flurries could reduce visibility.

"Within the mountains themselves and in the foothills areas adjacent to the mountains, they're looking to be a bit more on the snow side. So be very careful, visibility might be reduced quite considerably in parts, and you might end up having some snow-covered roads as well as some ice-covered roads if you end up having a bit of melt and then the overnight freeze. So it might be a bit of a difficult driving period from Saturday night onwards."

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