Fat Ian’s MFB Post:

From today’s Free Press (excerpt below, full article here):

The weather experts to the south say Manitoba can expect an early and very cold winter this year.

“You will see snow before Halloween,” Jack Boston, AccuWeather.com’s expert senior meteorologist, said. “You got a slight shot (at snow) late this week but… by Halloween, you’re going to see some accumulating snow.”

Boston said that overall, our winter in southern Manitoba will be about two degrees Celsius below normal, with the worst of it happening in December and January.

On the plus side, Boston said we can expect less snowfall than normal.

All the cold weather will be courtesy of a La Niña winter, Boston said, which will bring in Arctic cold air across Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba from as far away as Siberia.

Winter will start slowly, and then in January and February, it’s going to be fairly active, Anderson said.

That’s when we’re going see our significant snowfalls.

The reason for more snow and more cold? La Niña, a phenomenon that occurs when water temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean are below normal.

La Niña produces extreme cold across Western Canada during the winter while adding to snowfalls in Ontario and Quebec.

Water temperatures this year are pointing to a moderate-strength La Niña, Anderson said, which helps with the predictions.

This winter will see less snowfall in the Prairies, Anderson said, except in southwestern Alberta.

Because the Great Lakes are running warmer than normal, the areas around the lakes will have a greater amount of lake-effect snowfall, Anderson said.