Winter weather to cover Calgary in snow

There’s no fighting it, winter is coming and it is going to hit hard this week.

A special weather statement is in effect, warning that Calgary could see as much as 20 centimetres of snow by Wednesday evening.

Only a couple centimetres is expected to fall Monday, but it will pick up late Tuesday morning and into the afternoon, with the worst coming during the Wednesday morning rush hour.

CityNews meteorologist Andrew Schultz said there are two reasons for the change.

“First of all, we talked about this last week, how the arctic air was finally going to break down the jet (stream) that was at the far northern sections of our province, and in some cases north of Alberta, starts to shift and that allows the arctic air mass to come in,” he explained.

Second, there’s a pacific low pressure system which is moving into Montana.

There is still some uncertainty as to the exact path and speed of the low pressure system but the expectation is that anywhere from 10 to 20 centimetres of snow will fall from Tuesday morning until Wednesday evening in Calgary.

As is often the case, the weather will be worse to the southwestern parts of the province. Pincher Creek, Cardston and Kananaskis regions could get as much as 30 centimetres of snow.

But it’s not just going to be snowy.

“The real kick in the pants, starting down that five-day and seven-day forecast for that matter, today we’ll be dancing around that zero mark, I think we’ll squeak out plus one, and then everyday, with the average being minus two, everyday down the next several is cooler than average,” said Schultz.

Translation: Break out the long underwear.