It's no April Fool's Day joke. It will start to get less winterish and warmer as of today, declares Environment Canada meteorologist Dan Kulak.
He said the daytime high on Tuesday will be 2 C with it warming up to a balmy 8 C on Wednesday and 9 C on Thursday.
“We will see if Mother Nature is going to play a trick on us, be a fool or be pleasant on Tuesday,” said Kulak.
Last week's early spring blast produced about 25 centimetres of the white stuff, which is actually considered quite normal for this time of year.
“We tend to forget that as we move into March we move into a time period where the weather does start warming up. When you get the weather patterns in general moving into the springtime you are going to get the storm tracks moving through,” said Kulak. “You have the dryness of February and its typical cool weather, and as you move into March the weather gets more active as it warms up and there is going to be more moisture. There is more weather systems, and you get the snows of spring.”
After experiencing record-breaking accumulations of snow in November and December, Innisfail and the region have had relatively little amounts of accumulations since early January.
The normal amount of snow for that month is about 18.6 cm. The actual amount of snow that did arrive was 20.2 cm, said Kulak.
He said February usually produces about 14.5 cm of snow but only 2.6 cm fell that month in the region this year. As for March, the normal amount of total snowfall is 20.4 cm. Up to March 26, the town and area saw 29.6 cm of snow.
Kulak was unable to offer a long-term forecast for April but he did say the month typically warms up significantly but there can also be a fair bit of snow.
“It does snow in April and it probably will. It is not a sign that winter is still hanging on,” said Kulak. “It is just a sign that the seasons are doing what they do.”
