No, you’re not seeing a warm winter’s mirage in the forecast. A day of relief is indeed on the way. 

After much of the province was blanketed in extreme cold warnings over the weekend, this week starts in similar frigid fashion. 

“Very few areas spared from the extreme cold this morning,” says Environment Canada meteorologist Chris Stammers. 

A bitterly cold airmass remains stalled over the region which, combined with winds up to 20 km/h, are producing temperatures near -40 degrees. 

With a forecast high of -20 degrees on Monday, Winnipeggers will get little daytime relief from the prolonged period of cold. 

Tuesday, similarly, forecasts a chilly high of -22 before temperatures jump drastically on Wednesday. 

“Pretty good consensus amongst the various models that we’ll be very close to zero on Wednesday,” explains Stammers. “Quite the temperature swing.  It’ll be about thirty degrees from where we are tomorrow morning up to zero on Wednesday.”

Don’t expect the warm weather to last, though. 

Temperatures return back just below seasonal towards the end of the week with forecast highs of -18 and -19 on Thursday and Friday.