Cloudy and below seasonal start to the week

Some more winter before returning to spring. Gina Martin has a look at the five-day forecast from the Sky Watch Weather Centre.

It was a throwback to winter over the weekend but we will get a brief reprieve from the white stuff over the next couple of days.

Southerly winds blowing into the city today will help lift our temperatures above seasonal and aid in some melting, but expect a cloudy sky throughout the day with a high of 4 C.

Tuesday is looking pretty similar for conditions, but we will manage to get back up to a seasonal high of 8 C.

By as early as tomorrow night, more precipitation could be falling over Calgary.

Last week, a strong low pressure system off the U.S. West Coast was the real driver of the wet snow we saw over the weekend.

Usually these systems start to track inland and lose their energy, but this low has done something a bit different.

While it has weakened, it has remained out on the ocean and has now broken up into three mini low pressure systems. This trio of lows are working together to direct more wet weather into southern Alberta, with the strongest chances of flurries by Tuesday night.

We take a really interesting turn on Wednesday as a major shift in the jet stream will cause a large portion of the western and central U.S. and all of Canada to be enveloped in a cool continental polar air mass.

This isn’t polar vortex level of cold, but it will certainly be a noticeable temperature drop for states close to the Mexico border.

Within the polar air mass, is an upper Arctic low pressure system that will cause cooler temperatures and the strong chance for flurries on Wednesday and Thursday for Calgary.

For those yearning for warm spring conditions, good news, on the other side of this major low pressure trough, is a nice ridge of high pressure that will bring some nice temperatures by the weekend.