Longer-range trend shows 15 days straight below freezing; Thursday, Friday, Saturday the coldest

The Arctic polar vortex (a large pocket of cold air at the North Pole, enclosed by the winds around it) will be disrupted from its usual pattern and expand/move south.

This means much colder temperatures than we have had for a long time.

Could it be record-breaking? If it dips a couple of degrees further than what is expected in Calgary, then yes!

There will likely be a number of communities in the province that will either get record-breaking cold or at least colder than any temperatures in the past 20 years.

Some cold air has already begun to creep into many areas in Alberta but we still have one more mild day before the colder air mass invades Calgary.

Expect a chilly morning with a wind chill of around -12.

In the afternoon, some sunshine and a high of -1 C.

The longer-range trend is showing 15 days straight below freezing (from Sunday, Jan. 7 to Sunday, Jan. 21) with this Thursday, Friday and Saturday being the coldest days in the stretch.

As you can see by the graphic below, Friday will be at or close to -30 C for our daytime high.

Expect overnight and morning wind chills in the minus 40s Thursday night through Sunday morning.

Also, our best chance of snow this week is Tuesday night to Wednesday.

The amount looks similar to the last burst of snow, two to six centimetres in YYC.