Snowfall warning in effect for Thunder Bay area

Winter isn't done with Thunder Bay quite yet.

Environment Canada has issued a snowfall warning for the city, and areas along Lake Superior's north shore, with 15 to 25 centimetres of snow expected Sunday.

The warning is in place for:

• Thunder Bay;
• Kakabeka Falls;
• Marathon;
• Schreiber, and
• Nipigon areas.

"There's a weather system that's approaching from Minnesota, currently kind of moving northeast, and it's bringing a swath of snow with it," Jordan Nicholls, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said Sunday morning.

"That's going to reach Thunder Bay within the next couple hours... Radar indicates that it's right on the doorstep, near the international border."

Nicholls said there's potential for reduced visibility at times.

"We're expecting amounts to kind of be highly-variable across the Thunder Bay area and the north shore," he said "There will be a lot of influence, probably, from areas of higher terrain, which could receive the higher end of the amounts, closer to 25."

"For the Thunder Bay area, we're expecting somewhere in the range of 15 to 20 centimetres."

Warming temperatures to follow

In addition, Environment Canada has issued weather advisories for the Mantiouwadge, Hornepayne, Ignace, Geraldton, Longlac, Gull Bay, Atikokan, and Beardmore areas, where up to 15 centimetres of snow is possible on Sunday.

However, Environment Canada notes that "confidence in exact snowfall amounts for this event is low" and it is possible that some areas will receive in excess of 15 centimetres. 

The good news is temperatures will be warm in the coming days.

"We're expecting a high maybe around -1 or 0 (C) today, but after this system moves out and then looking ahead to the middle of next week, we're looking at temperatures that could be around five degrees or so for the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and mostly sunny skies," he said. "We could see a large portion of it disappear by the middle or end of this coming week."

More snow still possible

However, Nicholls said, more winter weather may be on the way.

"Most of next week looks fairly quiet," he said. "A few chances of flurries or showers in the area, but nothing significant."

However, Environment Canada is currently tackling another system that Nicholls said could affect "a large portion of Ontario."

"It will probably bring the chance of snow and perhaps freezing rain to a lot of areas, including the northwest," he said.

But that's not a guarantee.

"We're talking Friday, Saturday of next week, so given that that's six-to-seven days out, there's a lot of uncertainty," he said. "Details related to that are still very sparse, obviously, because it's a long ways out."

"But it's fair to say that the northwest is probably not done with snow for this season just yet."