Spring snowstorm — yes, another one — rolls into southern Manitoba

Another spring snowstorm in southern Manitoba has tucked many roads and fields back under a fresh new blanket.

Nearly all of southern Manitoba is under a warning that a slow-moving storm is expected to bring heavy snowfall and gusting winds that will whip up the fresh layers and create visibility issues.

Anywhere from 15 to 40 centimetres of snow is expected to fall after a Colorado low crossed into Canada Wednesday morning, Environment Canada forecast.

"You don't want to drive west. You don't want to go west of the Red River Valley, west of Portage la Prairie, on the highways today," CBC Manitoba meteorologist John Sauder said Wednesday morning.

"I do think that some of those highways will be closing even into Saskatchewan. That's where the worst of this is going to be as far as today is concerned."

While those areas dealt with a stormy Wednesday, areas to the east — from the Red River Valley, including Winnipeg and the south Interlake, across to the Ontario border — were largely spared from the worst conditions.

But then there's Thursday.

The storm will push a second wave of moderate to heavy snow to southern Manitoba, Environment Canada said.

That system is expected to bring another 10 to 20 centimetres of snow, roughly from Brandon to the Ontario border, which prompted Environment Canada to issue a snowfall warning late Wednesday afternoon for almost all of southern Manitoba, including Winnipeg.

The snow will spread northwards into parts of southern Manitoba early Thursday morning, then east across the Red River Valley and southeastern Manitoba through the day, the weather agency said.

The snow may not stick around too long, though, Sauder said.

"It's a complicated setup … because a lot of this snow is melting, because we've had some sunshine, we've had some warm temperatures. There is some heat in the ground, so it'll melt on contact," he said.

"So snowfall accumulation amounts are really tough to peg down at this point."

Below normal temperatures are forecast in the wake of the system, with single-digit highs.

"Normal high right now is 12 C. I see us at about 10 degrees below that for both days of the weekend, and overnight lows will be in that –8 C to –11 C range," Sauder said. "So it's going to be cold for a while."

Seasonal temperatures aren't expected to return until the middle of next week.