Markham, ON - Hey, we're seeing the shades of spring appearing! Just as when we all think, "when will winter end?", we are going to have a taste of spring (as I had promised in my earlier blog) in the next 2 days or so. A Colorado low drawing extensive moisture is finding its way up to Ontario and Quebec, just in time for Tuesday and Wednesday. Due to the jet stream is aligning more northerly than most other winter storms during the past few months, this allows more warm air to flow into the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor. In a sense, most of the precipitation of this storm will be rain-oriented. In fact, during "peak warmth period" tomorrow, the 0C surface temperature line goes all the way up to Moosonee, Ontario. Hence, allowing much of Ontario to experience rain tomorrow, while near the extreme north, some wet snow and freezing rain.

This morning, much of Southern Ontario saw a little bit of wet snow (nothing accumulated for most areas), as the warm front passes through. Northern Ontario, and East-central Quebec, however, will start seeing this system as mainly snow, accumulating up to 5 cm, switching briefly (maximum 10 hours) to rain. Temperatures across this warm sector of the low (on the Canadian side) will range from 8 C down in Windsor, Ontario to -2 C in Moosonee, Ontario, which was a little lower than what we had previously forecasted on Sunday.

Moderate to heavy rain is going to fall mostly around the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor. In Toronto, particularly, we can expect up to 30 mm of rain, making it the first rainstorm of the spring season. Technically, however, spring does not begin until March 20, 2008.

However, spring does not stay long. As soon as the cold front hits the corridor during the course of Wednesday evening, we are back to some winter like temperature. We are going to receive some wrap-around flurries, accumulating around 1 cm, at maximum 5 cm (some forecasters are suggesting more than 10 cm, which I think is rather unlikely). Some winter like temperature with sunny skies come during the Easter weekend, with temperatures across Ontario hovering between -5 C to 0 C.