Hopefully, residents in the region haven’t put away their snow shovels quite yet as a massive winter storm system bringing around 25-40 cm of snow is heading straight for the region.
Environment Canada is tracking a Colorado Low making it’s way north into Northwestern Ontario beginning on Wednesday afternoon (April 13, 2022), through until Friday (April 13, 2022).
“Once it makes its way into Canada from the United States a lot of snow, a lot of strong wind as well,” said Steven Flisfeder, Environment Canada Meteorologist. “On the Ontario side, particularly for NWO, just for Wednesday alone looking at snowfall amounts of 15-20 cm as a rough estimate.”
Moving into Thursday (April 14, 2022), Flisfeder said the snow will intensify with an additional 15 cm of snow expected, before tapering off on Friday with light flurries.
On Sunday afternoon (April 10, 2022) Enviornment Canada issued a Special Weather Statement in preparation for the massive storm system.
The storm once into Canada will begin in Manitoba on Tuesday (April 12, 2022) into Thursday (April 14, 2022), with an expected 30 to 50 cm of snow to fall in the Winnipeg and Red River Valley areas.
Once the storm passes through North Dakota it will bring it even more snow as they are predicting 60-80 cm of snow.
It is expected that an estimated 70 km/h wind gusts are supposed to accompany the storm system
With the Easter weekend ahead of us, Flisfeder is advising residents to possibly make adjustments to their travel plans accordingly.
“People will definitely want to plan ahead if they have to travel, it’s better to do it Tuesday (April 12, 2022) than any other day this week. I know it’s going to be a holiday weekend coming up, so if you were planning to travel to see family and friends on Friday (April 15, 2022), maybe postpone or if you’re able to get there Tuesday (April 12, 2022).
The agency is calling for limited to zero visibility on highways due to the winds gusts and the heavy snowfall.
This winter has been very unusual in terms of snowfall as Kenora has received over 238 cm of snow from October of 2021. The average for those months combined is usually roughly 145.5 cm.
To make matters worse the forecasted temperatures are not going to be favourable.
“Temperatures are going to near the freezing marking for Wednesday but then they are going to dip below the freezing mark for all of Thursday and that’s temperatures 10-15 degrees below the seasonal average for this time of the year.”
KenoraOnline will be updating the severity of the storm system as the information becomes available.
Keep up to date with all weather conditions with the REMR Roofing Storm Tracker.