It is Christmas Day and not even an extreme cold warning from Environment Canada can get in the way of celebration. Throughout southeastern Manitoba, families are attending Christmas services, exchanging gifts, and gathering together to celebrate.

Shannon Moodie is a Meteorologist with Environment Canada. She says an extreme cold warning has been issued for southeastern Manitoba because windchill values are expected to exceed minus 40 degrees.

"What happened was on Saturday we had a cold front that moved through the prairies and behind it ushered in this arctic cold air and it has become entrenched over the prairies so those cold temperatures combined with winds of northwest we are seeing windchill values of minus 40 to minus 45."

Moodie says it looks like this frigid weather won’t be going anywhere in the near future.

"Our daily highs will be in the minus 25 to minus 20 range and the overnight 30 to 35 for the foreseeable future. There may be some periods where winds will be quite light so during the day we will see a brief relief in windchill values but in the nighttime, they will likely return to minus 40 and we are expecting to see that into the new year."