On Saturday morning, there was a possibility St. Albertans would wake up to their first taste of snow for the season.
This weekend, there are weather warnings across Alberta. While St. Albert is escaping the worst of the snow warning, there was still a possibility of flurries or rain on Saturday.
Kyle Fougere, meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, cautioned anyone driving in southern Alberta to be careful and drive safely as the road conditions are expected to be poor.
“If anyone has any travel plans this weekend, we're really trying to get the message out to really pay attention to weather because there are going to be very poor travel conditions over a lot of southern Alberta,” Fougere said.
The meteorologist said summer is officially over at the beginning of September and autumn typically holds the first snowfall.
“There has been a very drastic change in the weather starting pretty much (on Thursday),” Fougere said.
“So far, we've been several degrees above normal for most of September, which was nice after the cooler wetter summer that we had. But that has come to an end now that we have this low pressure system that's moving down to southern Alberta.”
The meteorologist said the systems are dragging cold air down across the province from the north and said it will bring with it overnight lows below zero.
“So much cooler temperatures over the next little while with this low pressure system and it’s also producing the chance of snow.”
But Fougere said the good news is that typically the snow doesn’t stick around for long as the temperatures rebound quickly.
Looking back at the past 20 years, seven of those years the region has had snow in September. Some 16 out of the 20 years saw snow in October.
Fougere said the chilly snap is not slated to stay and temperatures are expected to warm up and return to the average 12 C to 13 C.
The meteorologist said this fall there isn’t a strong weather system impacting the weather patterns in the region but for September, October and November they are anticipating slightly above normal temperatures and normal precipitation.
In October, the region typically sees around 20 millimetres of precipitation, which includes melted snow and rain. Usually around nine millimetres of that is snow. In November, there is usually around 18 millimetres of precipitation.
On Saturday, the high was expected to be 5 C with a chance of flurries or rain showers and a low of -5 C overnight. On Sunday, the high is expected to be 4 C with a low of -3 C overnight.
