Grey Bruce is forecasted to experience unseasonably warm temperatures this week and part of next week.
Highs Thursday and Friday are forecasted to be 7 and 8 degrees, respectively.
Environment Canada meteorologist Gerald Cheng says “It’s definitely going to be above normal because our normal high should be around minus two, and looking at the forecast, we will be way above that— ten degrees above.”
Cheng says, with the system that’s coming, we will be getting some rain, which Environment Canada thinks could amount to 10-20 mm.
“We will be getting a system this weekend and it’s moving a lot of air from the gulf of Mexico, towards, especially around central Ontario, and that’s why we’re getting a huge warmup. Of course when the temperatures are warm, with the system it’s going to come in the form of rain which is a world of difference from what we experienced last weekend,” says Cheng
“Certainly with warm temperatures, some of that snow will melt, but whether or not, that will have impacts, I’ll defer to the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), or the conservation authority, but that is something of concern because we are seeing this big fluctuation, when we had to deal with wind chills down to the minus 30s and suddenly we are looking at almost double digit temperatures, so this is quite a big change.”
Owen Sound saw about 70 cms of snowfall last weekend.
As of 1 p.m. Dec. 28th, the Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority as well as the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority’s web pages have listed the flood outlook as normal on their websites.
Grey Sauble Conservation Authority Water Resource Coordinator John Bittorf says the more snow we have, the better off we actually are because it creates a mature snowpack that melts more slowly and can also absorb some rainfall, “If you have less snow on the ground, you’ve definitely got more potential for it to disappear faster, so as you go further south with the CAs (conservation authorities) they may be a totally different condition,” says Bittorf. He says in the case of the Grey Sauble watershed, “Right now the snow just helps to prevent it from melting quickly because there’s just so much of it.” He also notes, even with a couple of warmer days, nighttime’s cooler temperatures also help slow melting.
He adds, rivers and other waterways haven’t had a chance to really freeze, so it’s not considered likely there will be ice jams to cause flooding either.
Meanwhile Cheng says the melting doesn’t mean you should give up shoveling snow, “You really want to make sure to shovel properly as well, because you don’t want the slush to get stuck,” says Cheng, who notes, it will be much heavier as it melts.
He adds, “Mid-week next week — that’s when we see temperatures slowly dropping back to where they should be. Patience is the key, unfortunately, so the warmup is what we have to deal with.”
