Santa may have a brand-new bag, but Vancouver's weather will be the usual mixed bag this week.
As Christmas approaches, the weather around Metro Vancouver will start off cold, but bounce around a bit, leaving conditions on Dec. 25 a little unclear, says Environment Canada meteorologist Ross Macdonald.
Sunday, Dec. 18 will see flurries fall throughout the evening, with several centimeters expected to accumulate before it's done. And that snow will stick around for a while.
"We're running about 10 below normal with this air mass in place," he says. "That's going to be with us for the better part of the week."
The federal agency's website shows flurries are expected to continue throughout Monday, Dec. 19; Macdonald notes the current system should move south soon, but a weaker system is expected to follow behind.
Tuesday and Wednesday should clear up a bit, but the cold arctic air will still be in Vancouver. For the first three days of the week the highs in Vancouver may only reach 0 C, while lows will dip to around -5 C or -6 C.
Macdonald says there'll be a break in the systems Wednesday, which should be a sunny but cold day, before things change again.
"Then it gets interesting," he says. "We're going to switch air masses later this week; we're going to see the onset of a Pacific system."
That'll bring warm, moist air, which should push the arctic air mass away from Vancouver around Thursday. That'll cause snow at first, but as the warm air (bringing temperatures to 4 C or 5 C) pushes the cold air out, it'll change to rain.
"We're going to see a fair amount of snow in the area before it transitions to rain," Macdonald says, current expectations are for that to happen late Thursday, Dec. 22, but it's hard to pin down.
The Environment Canada forecast currently shows another cold air mass arriving in Vancouver Friday, Dec. 23. With temperatures dropping overnight to -7 C and Christmas Eve Day only rising to a high of -3 C with a chance of flurries, there's a chance for a white Christmas but those forecasts are a ways off.
Macdonald notes that it'll depend on how much snow falls before the transition happens, how much rain falls after the transition, how close people are to the ocean, and what their elevation is.
"Your proximity to the ocean and elevation is going to play a role," he says.
