A Climatologist with Environment Canada says their models are showing spring in southern Manitoba will see normal temperatures with normal precipitation. And based on their projections for winter, this could be a forecast worth paying attention to.

Back in early December, David Phillips announced his winter outlook for the months of December, January and February, calling for above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation. In looking back on those months, this week, Phillips says they got it right. While February was colder than normal by six degrees, December and January were milder than normal. And as for precipitation, southern Manitoba typically sees just over 23 inches of snow in a winter, and the total amount this year was slightly less.

Even though Environment Canada is calling for daytime highs in the -12 to -15 degree range for the first part of this week, Phillips says both Canadian and American weather models suggest that should all soon change.

"Models are showing a real warmup, warmer than normal conditions across southern Manitoba," suggests Phillips. "We're not talking about muscle shirt and tank top kind of weather but we're clearly seeing, compared to what most March's are like, a bit of a warmup."

Phillips says with a lot of sun in the forecast this week, there should be melting happening, even on days where the mercury stays below the freezing mark.

Though March could have its share of wild temperature swings, Phillips says historically there is a dramatic shift from February to March. He notes while most Februarys are only about three degrees warmer than January, the difference in average temperature from March to February is more than seven degrees.

As mentioned, February was a bitterly cold month for southern Manitoba. Phillips says the average temperature last month was -19 degrees, when the average February temperature for southern Manitoba is -13 degrees. He notes we had five days in February where the temperature reached -30 degrees, which is more than January (3) and December (1). Yet that's still way down from last winter when there were a total of 23 days. According to Phillips, the temperature didn't go above the freezing mark at any point last month.

Meanwhile, though he advises against betting a lot of money on it, Phillips says their models are suggesting the months of June, July and August will be warmer than normal.