Unsettled weather week

It turned out to be a decent Sunday with the sun and clouds playing in a gusty northwest wind. The fall colours were in fine form across the St. Lawrence Valley including Lancaster, Ontario yesterday. (ValleyWX)

We managed to salvage half this past weekend here in Montreal, which was better than I had imagined at the start. The clouds and heavy showers associated with the strong cold front on Saturday managed to clear out rather nicely for Sunday. Montreal had around 25mm (1 inch) of rain on Saturday with a gusty northeast wind and cool temperatures. By Sunday it was a much more fresh air mass with moderate northwest winds, up to 50km/h at times, and temperatures in the low teens (50's).

Our weather for the start of this week will be controlled by a very strong early fall storm located in Hudson Bay. This storm is producing a wide area of snow and very strong winds across portions of Nunavut and northern Manitoba. Its effects on southern Ontario and Quebec will be in the form a persistent northwest flow of cool, moist air with a couple of areas of clouds and showers rotating throughout southern Quebec into Wednesday. In between the cloudy periods and showers we may see a few glimpses of sun like this morning. Temperatures will be seasonable today at 16C (60F) but rather mild on Tuesday and Wednesday, close to 19C (66F). By Wednesday a more important area of showers will lift northwest off the Atlantic across New England and into Quebec with perhaps a decent area of rain. More on that tomorrow. We will not see clearing skies before Thursday, and it will turn cooler and dry for next weekend.