Neighbours south of the border are preparing for a major winter storm but questions still linger about if Manitobans will find themselves digging out in just a few days.

A low pressure system heading for North Dakota currently has forecasters calling for anywhere between one and two feet of snow falling in the Grand Forks area on Thursday. Rain and freezing rain could possibly impact the region on Wednesday, before turning to heavy snow on Thursday. Winds blowing from the north at 45 km/h with gusts up to 80 km/h will make travel even more difficult. Heavy snow at times is expected to occur throughout the afternoon and into the evening, before weakening on Friday.

For the most part, it looks as though Manitoba might escape the brunt of the snow, but forecasters caution that it's still early.

"Currently, it looks like it's just going to clip Southeastern Manitoba," meteorologist Shannon Moody from Environment Canada says. "So, unfortunately for them, Ontario is going to be the province that bears the brunt of it, but looking like Steinbach and the Whiteshell area could certainly see some snow. We're not looking at 25 centimetres at this point, but you know a broad range of like 10 to 15 to 20 at this point." 

Winnipeg and the capital region aren't necessarily getting away with missing the system completely.

"I wouldn't say (Winnipeg will get) nothing," Moody says. "We could certainly get some flurries with it, but it looks like yeah, in general, Winnipeg's been pretty lucky so far. We've had a really nice early November. Yes, we've had some snow, but I mean Saskatchewan has just had system after system moved through, central Manitoba has had a decent amount of snow, northern Manitoba, too. So yeah, we just keep on being in the middle of these systems, so we're OK for now."

Moody, however, cautioned once again that it is still early and the system could shift to have more of an impact on southern Manitoba. "It's still a ways out; like we're looking at this starting Thursday afternoon into Friday. So if there are any shifts in the system, it could hit us, but at this point, it's just looking like southeastern Manitoba." 

For now, it looks like we'll avoid breaking any weather records. On this day in 1986 there was already 19.0 cm of snow on the ground when Winnipeg got hit with another 25.4 cm of snow. 

Winnipeg is expected to hit a high of +5 on Tuesday, November 8, slightly above the seasonal high of +2. By Thursday, daytime highs will cool significantly, only reaching -5 on Thursday through Saturday, and then -7 on Sunday and Monday.