Most of Manitoba now under extreme cold warnings as highways reopen after southern blizzard
Bitterly cold wind chills coming to southern, northern Manitoba Tuesday night: Environment Canada
The first day of February started with a blizzard in Manitoba that closed many southern highways — including the Perimeter Highway encircling Winnipeg — due to hazardous roads.
And on Tuesday afternoon, Environment Canada issued extreme cold warnings for almost all of Manitoba, advising a "prolonged period of very cold wind chills" is coming.
Manitobans hoping to leave behind January's loads of snow, extreme cold and winds that cut like a knife on some days instead woke up to more of the same Tuesday.
"This is too much," Myleena Sangalang said with a laugh on her walk through downtown Winnipeg. "I am over it. I was over it last month already."
Whiteout conditions led over a dozen school divisions to cancel buses and close to in-person learning.
Visibility was so poor due to blowing snow that several incoming and departing flights were delayed or cancelled at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport in the morning.
"It's like driving or walking in a snow globe," Dave Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, told Information Radio host Marcy Markusa. "Snow is blowing at you from every direction."
The storm brought blizzard warnings to most of the south, blowing snow advisories to the southeast and snowfall warnings stretching through the Interlake and up along the eastern part of the province, according to Environment Canada.
As of 7:40 p.m., all of the blizzard warnings had expired.
A tweet by the Manitoba RCMP Tuesday night noted that "100+ vehicles are stuck on the Perimeter," and that they were working with Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service to check on the safety of anyone in those vehicles.
By 11 p.m., every stretch of road in the province, including the Perimeter and Trans-Canada highways, had reopened, according to the province's road conditions website.
CBC meteorologist John Sauder says after Tuesday's blizzard conditions, southern Manitoba will see a stretch of cold, with a –30 C low Tuesday night for the Winnipeg area and a cold Wednesday.
Environment Canada's extreme cold warnings say winds of 15 to 20 km/h will create wind chills near –40 overnight for most of southern Manitoba.
There will be a short reprieve from the cold during the day Wednesday, the weather agency says, but even colder air comes Wednesday night into Thursday.
The extreme cold is likely to ease by late week into the weekend, Environment Canada says.
Extreme cold also descended over the north on Tuesday, with extreme cold warnings in effect for that region too.
Wind chill values in the north will be in the –45 range, Environment Canada says.
As of 7:40 p.m., the following areas were under an extreme cold warning:
- Arborg, Hecla, Fisher River, Gypsumville and Ashern.
- Berens River, Little Grand Rapids, Bloodvein and Atikaki.
- Bissett, Victoria Beach, Nopiming Provincial Park and Pine Falls.
- Brandon, Neepawa, Carberry, Treherne.
- Brochet.
- Churchill.
- Dauphin, Russel, Roblin, Winnipegosis.
- Dugald, Beausejour and Grand Beach.
- Gillam.
- Grand Rapids, Waterhen.
- Island Lake, Oxford House, Gods Lake.
- Killarney, Pilot Mound, Manitou.
- Lynn Lake, Leaf Rapids, Pukatawagan.
- Melita, Boissevain, Turtle Mountain Provincial Park.
- Minnedosa, Riding Mountain National Park.
- Morden, Winkler, Altona and Morris.
- Poplar River.
- Portage la Prairie, Headingley, Brunkild and Carman.
- Selkirk, Gimli, Stonewall, Woodlands.
- Shamattawa.
- Sprague, Northwest Angle Provincial Forest.
- Ste. Rose, McCreary, Alonsa and Gladstone.
- Steinbach, St. Adolphe, Emerson, Vita and Richer.
- Swan River, Duck Mountain, Porcupine Provincial Forest.
- Tadoule Lake.
- Thompson, Nelson House, Split Lake.
- Virden, Souris.
- Whiteshell, Lac du Bonnet, Pinawa.
- Winnipeg.
- York.
Lots of snow, but no January records
Despite all the snow southern Manitoba has seen so far this year, Phillips said no big records were set in January.
What was more unusual was the relatively uninterrupted stretch of cold with no thawing last month — something Phillips says happens only once every eight years or so in Manitoba.
Temperatures averaged about three degrees colder than normal in January, he said. Manitoba also had 11 days below –30 C last month — nearly double what's typical.
Alberta and Saskatchewan had colder Decembers than Manitoba. January saw the "cold pole" of that system shifting east over Manitoba and into Ontario, said Phillips.
"Manitoba being the centre of the country, it sort of had the worst of that," he said.
The cold temperatures preserved the snow that fell in Manitoba, which is good news for drought-stricken Manitoba farmland that struggled to produce amid record-breaking heat and a lack of precipitation last growing season.
Phillips said Manitoba has already had more than 100 centimetres more of rain and snow since September than it did last all last winter.
"You've been doing a lot more shovelling, plowing and pushing," he said. "But when you've had so many dry years, this is good news, actually."
Milan Suvajac said as a snowmobiler, he's pretty happy right now.
"We pray for weather like this," he said. "We're from Manitoba — we're used to this kind of stuff. This is nothing."
The remainder of the month may be a little like a "roller-coaster" temperature-wise, Phillips said. He expects February will end up being colder than average but not as "brutally" cold as January.
Warmer temperatures are expected to return in the middle of the month.
With files from Information Radio