Winter weather is expected to be on the way for the Medicine Hat area with 30 cm of snow expected through Thursday. (CHAT News)

By Jesse Gill, Eli J. Ridder

Medicine Hat under snowfall weather warning, up to 30 cm of snow by Friday morning

Mar 20, 2024 | 1:50 PM

• Medicine Hat, along with much of southern Alberta, is under a snowfall warning
• 10 to 30 centimetres of snow is expected by Friday morning
• Temperatures will stay below seasonal averages until next week

Snowfall warning in place

After temperatures hit 19 C in Medicine Hat on Monday, it’s time to make sure your snow shovel and winter coat aren’t too far away.

A snowfall warning is in effect right now, warning of up to 30 centimetres of snow across southern Alberta by Friday morning.

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Temperatures will stay below seasonal averages until next week.

Catch the latest AccuWeather report during the CHAT Evening News with Dan Reynish at 5 p.m. Watch live.

Why all the snow?

Brian Proctor, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said it’s all due to a cold front that’s pushing down from the north.

“We’re seeing really cold air up in the Northwest Territories at this point, the getting does really start to push southwards, pushing that frontal band down over top of us at this point in time,” Proctor said.

“We’re gonna see that frontal band, the cooling coming in today, and we overrun that with a bit of an upper feature coming across from BC through the overnight tonight into the next sort of through much of the day, Wednesday into Thursday.”

Heavy snowfall is expected in the mountains and foothills.

In the Medicine Hat area, the snowfall isn’t expected to be intense, but is predicted to be continuous light to moderate snowfall over the next two days.

This will be really important from an agricultural side of view providing some much needed moisture, Proctor said.

“We think in the Medicine Hat area, it’ll start to snow after midnight, and then continue to do much of the day, tomorrow and into Thursday, we may see a little bit of a brief break on Friday, but the whole frontal boundary sort of stalls across southern Alberta, the northern plains of the United States,” Proctor said.

“Then we’re gonna bring in another sort of impulse in Friday, Saturday, overtop so we may see a little bit of a break from the snow on Friday, but we’re gonna see more snow again as we move to the weekend.”

The snow flurries are expected to continue throughout the weekend, temperatures are expected to slowly start climbing early next week.

Similar conditions are expected in the Maple Creek and Leader areas over the next few days.