Warm and windy end to the week with highs 20 degrees warmer than next weekend

Few more days of warmth before cold hits. Jodi Hughes has a look at the five-day forecast from the Sky Watch Weather Centre.

Friday will be the warmest day for at least a couple of weeks with daytime highs in the double-digits across southern Alberta.

Just before 8:30 a.m. Friday, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) issued wind warnings for the southwest corner of Alberta, including most of the Highway 2 corridor south of Calgary, and along Highway 3 from east of Fort Macleod to the B.C. border.

“Strong winds with gusts up to 100 km/h are expected,” ECCC said.

West winds will be strong around Calgary as well but should remain below warning thresholds.

A moisture-laden system moving in from northern B.C. early Friday prompted freezing rain warnings around Edmonton and into northwestern Saskatchewan.

In the alert, ECCC explained, “Freezing rain warnings are issued when rain falling in sub-zero temperatures creates ice build-up and icy surfaces.”

This system is expected to move into Saskatchewan by the evening.

More snow will fall throughout the Rockies over the next 36 hours and start to edge east of the foothills Sunday and Monday.

A widespread cooldown is expected to initiate in B.C. and Alberta on Sunday before spreading across the country early next week.

The mid-latitude jet stream will ride along the southern Prairie border, making room for arctic air to flow in, dropping temperatures to unseasonably cold values from coast-to-coast.

Monday will be the first of many days where the daytime high in Calgary will not rise above freezing.

By the end of next weekend, the daytime high will be closer to the average overnight low in Calgary, and also more than 20 degrees colder than today’s daytime high.

Calgary could see some precipitation over the next week, including Sunday night and Monday and again at the end of next week.