Cold start in Montreal - storm by Friday?

Impressive Environment Canada image of large storm swirling off the coast of Newfoundland on Monday.

Clear skies, calm winds and a fresh coating of snow have all helped the temperature drop rapidly to -23C here at my home on L'Ile Perrot this morning. It is a little "warmer" at Trudeau Airport at -19C. Temperatures will climb nicely today under bright sunshine with little wind to highs of around -8C. Clouds will increase later today as a weak clipper system slides down the St. Lawrence Valley. A period of very light snow is expected after midnight, much the same as this past weekend. Expect 1-2cm and not much more than that, just enough to coat the roads again. Skies will clear out Wednesday and it will be chilly once again.

Our weather pattern will then become a little more active heading into Thursday. Low pressure from the west will attempt to merge with energy along the eastern seaboard to produce snow by late Thursday into Friday. There are many different computer generated scenarios at this time but basically expect at least 10cm of snow from the GTA towards Montreal and Ottawa. If we have a merging of the two systems we could be looking at a larger coastal storm with perhaps more snow for Montreal. Once that clears out the weekend looks sunny and seasonable before another complex storm system takes aim at the region into Monday with more snow and mixed precipitation.

Yesterday a large and very deep coastal low with a pressure reading as low as 962mb affected portions of Atlantic Canada. Winds gusted up to 140km/h at Sagona Island, Newfoundland and 100km/h at Sable Isalnd, Nova Scotia. Halifax had over 20cm of snow while parts of the south coast had over 40mm of rain.