By Taylor Chartrand

From dry to snow covered just like that

Dec 1, 2018 | 2:31 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – If you were driving around Medicine Hat last night and even into this morning, the roads were fairly dry and there wasn’t a ton of snow on the ground.

Mere hours later, a completely different story.

To say we flipped the calendar into December without barely any snow on the ground is almost unheard of for these parts.

With an explanation on what Hatters can expect weather-wise for the coming days, here’s Environment Canada Meteorologist, Blaine Lowry. 

“Heading through the next few days, there is some light snow in the forecast. As we move through the afternoon, there’s an area of snowfall in southwest Saskatchewan that’s going to move into the region. By the end of the day and into tomorrow, Medicine Hat itself can expect around 5 cm’s of snow.”

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Lowry added that in areas particularly north and east of the Hat, snowfall amounts could be around 10 cm’s. 

“The snowfall warning criteria for Environment Canada is 10 cm’s of snow or more in less than 24 hours. The snowfall amounts for most of Alberta is going to be less than that, with accumulations over a couple days adding up to over 10 cm’s. The higher amounts are expected more north of Medicine Hat.”

A snowfall warning may not come for Medicine Hat, as 5 cm’s for this time of year is fairly normal. As you head more north towards Oyen and Coronation, that’s where Environment Canada is expecting the heavier amounts of 10-20 cm’s.

Lowry said we can thank a low-pressure system for the snow currently falling.

“There’s a low-pressure system actually well off into the United States, but it has a bit of an appendage reaching back towards Alberta, which is giving us this snow. Following that, the weather gets pretty benign. We’ll see the sun come back early this week.”

Now although it may have seemed irregular to be this warm throughout the month of November, Lowry explained that it’s pretty typical.

“For the month of November, Medicine Hat was right around normal. The average temperature for Medicine Hat around this time is -1.8 and the average temperature for this November was -1.5. It really hasn’t been to abnormal. That’s going to continue heading into next week. We’ll be below normal, but not by much, maybe a couple degrees.”

Now, plus temperatures are going to basically be a thing of the past for the rest of 2018.

Lowry then finished by stating the obvious when it comes to snow hitting the ground.

“To anyone out travelling today, particularly north or east of the city, be cautious of those winter driving conditions.”