Clipper system brings blast of snow to Ontario
Meteorologist
Saturday, February 20, 2016, 8:05 AM - The upper air pattern is becoming more zonal into the weekend, as shown below, which will allow milder Pacific air to push eastward.
Riding along this zonal flow of air aloft will be an Alberta Clipper that will linger into Saturday. This will draw warm moist air northward near the surface as well.
With milder Pacific air pushing in aloft from the west and warm moist air being drawn northward near the lower levels of the atmosphere from the south, a mild and messy Saturday is expected for much of Ontario.
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Breezy and mild conditions will linger through southern Ontario and the GTA where highs are expected to be up near 6°C to 10°C and potentially as high as 12°C toward southwestern Ontario. Across the GTA there will be the risk for a few spotty showers, but nothing major to be expected.
Across central and eastern Ontario, scattered rain snow showers will linger through the day with mainly scattered rain showers toward eastern Ontario where afternoon highs are expected to be near 4°C to 6°C.
Central and northeastern Ontario will see cooler air slowly filter back in, but still expecting highs near 0°C to 3°C which will give mainly a mix of rain and snow and mainly snow for northern and northeastern Ontario where another 1-3 cm are expected.
In total from Friday through Saturday, central and northeastern Ontario could see accumulations anywhere from 10-20 cm with Cottage Country mainly near 2-5 cm.
Eastern Ontario, mainly the Ottawa Valley, could see anywhere from 5-10 cm from Friday through to Saturday morning. Rainfall amounts are not expected to be significant, but for northern sections of the GTA as well as for parts of Cottage Country, mainly near the Georgian Bay shores, rainfall amounts near 5-15 mm are possible from this evening through to when the rain tapers off Saturday afternoon.
