Southern Alberta heading into a few days of potentially record-breaking highs

Potential for some record-breaking highs in Calgary. Jodi Hughes has a look at the five-day forecast from the Sky Watch Weather Centre.

A persistent and strong ridge of high pressure situated over the western portion of the country will remain in place for at least a few days.

Warm air is being drawn in and is elevating temperatures on both ends of the diurnal temperature cycle across Western Canada while central and eastern Canada navigate moderate to cool temperatures as that portion of the country sits inside of a trough dominated by the polar vortex.

Another low in the north Pacific basin is helping to anchor that ridge in the west due to the opposing circulations around these highs and lows.

On Tuesday, Calgary is expecting a high of 8 C with less intense wind speeds compared to Monday.

Daytime highs in Calgary will sit between 11 C to 15 C from Wednesday until Saturday with lows of -1 C and 6 C.

The normal range of temperatures this time of year is -2 C for a high and -14 C for a low.

There has been a lot of melting across southern Alberta over the past few days, and this will continue with these unusually high temperatures.

Where there is pooling water from the daytime melt, freezing will still occur during some overnight periods but, with such warm overnight lows, new ice will be thin.

There is a risk of rain overnight from Wednesday to Thursday in central Alberta, with freezing rain likely north of that.

Snow and mixed precipitation is possible in the B.C. interior and the Rockies at that same time.

Calgary is not expecting any new precipitation for at least the next five-days. The next chance of new rain and/or snow for this area will be on Monday as this pattern starts to break down and temperatures begin to moderate.