Edmonton weather: Cold spell breaks early next week

Cory Edel has your Friday and weekend Edmonton forecast.

We’re in the bottom of the deep freeze in Edmonton this morning.

It’ll be a slow climb out, but we should be out of the coldest air by late this afternoon.

That doesn’t mean it won’t still be cold for a few more days. But, it DOES mean that we’ll be done with temperatures in the -25 to -30 C range.

Temperatures will climb slightly above -20 C this afternoon and then level off around -20 C overnight with a few flurries possible.

We’ll climb to the -15 C range Saturday afternoon, drop into the -20s Sunday morning and then up around -10 C Sunday afternoon.

So, still chilly (especially in the morning)...but that sounds a lot better for Sunday afternoon, right?

The downside on Sunday will be the wind: 15 km/h gusting to 30 km/h will give us wind chills in the -20s through to midday and in the minus teens Sunday afternoon.

That’s not quite the warm up that you may have been anticipating when you looked that that forecast high for Sunday.

What about Monday? Well...there’s actually another push of arctic air coming out of the north early next week.

The core of that cold blast should be further east, though. So...we’ll drop to the -10 to -15 C range for a high on Monday (with a chance of some light snow).

After Monday, we get the REAL warming trend.

Daytime highs will return to the -5 C range for Tuesday and we’ll have highs around 0 C through mid-to-late next week.

Like I said, it’ll be a slow climb out of the cold. But, after today - that climb begins and we’ll be back to average temperatures by Tuesday and warmer-than-average after that.

It’s a different story in eastern Alberta.

While Edmonton and area has morning temperatures near -30 C, temperatures in the northeast are in the -40 C range and east-central Aslberta is getting wind chills near -45.

They’ll get similar conditions on Saturday with morning temperatures in the -35 C to -40 C range and afternoon highs in the -25 C to -30 C range.

Sunday doesn’t look AS COLD: still around -30 C in the morning, but up around -15 C in the afternoon.

Daytime highs in that part of the province will likely stay in the -12 to -16 C range from Monday through to at least the middle of next week.

Bottom line: Eastern Alberta gets out of the arctic air Sunday afternoon, but remains colder than average through to Wednesday/Thursday.

Want some milder conditions sooner? Head west.

Daytime highs will be in the -10 to -15 C range today and the -5 to -10 C Saturday.

By Sunday, we’ll have afternoon temperature around or slightly above the freezing mark in much of western Alberta.

Here’s the forecast for Edmonton and area:

Today - Sunny breaks this morning. Mostly cloudy this afternoon.

30% chance of flurries late in the afternoon.

Light wind.

High: -18

Tonight - Mostly cloudy. 70% chance of flurries this evening and/or overnight.

9pm: -19

Saturday - Mostly cloudy. Clearing late in the afternoon and evening.

Morning Low: -20

Afternoon High: -16

Sunday - Partly cloudy and breezy.

Wind: S 15 gusting to 30 km/h.

Morning Low: -23

Afternoon High: -9

Monday - Mostly cloudy. 60% chance of flurries or light snow.

Morning Low: -16

Afternoon High: -12

Tuesday - Mostly cloudy. 40% chance of light snow.

Morning Low: -14

Afternoon High: -5

Wednesday - Mix of sun & cloud.

Morning Low: -12

Afternoon High: -3