Temperatures to plunge this weekend, but there will be plenty of sunshine

Pull the toque and mitts out of storage. You’re going to need them this weekend, and probably your sunglasses as well.

“We are looking at a pretty big shift in the weather pattern beginning this weekend. Really coming in sort of late Friday, early Saturday and then into next week,” says Environment Canada meteorologist Alyssa Charbonneau.

A cold, arctic ridge of high pressure is building from the north. It will bring cold air across the province.

Here in the Southern Interior, Sunday’s daytime highs will be -7 C. The overnight lows will dip close to -15 C. Those temperatures are five to 10 degrees below normal for this time of year.

The upside is there should be plenty of sunshine through the weekend.

“With the arrival of that cold, arctic air, it’s very dry. And so a lot of that valley cloud and cloudy weather that we’ve been having will be moved out and we will expect to see some sunny days at least into the weekend and the beginning of next week,” says Charbonneau.

Unfortunately for the ski hills, she does not predict an inversion; when it’s warmer at higher elevations than in the valley.

“This is kind of a much colder air mass, so expect it to be much colder everywhere.”

She says the arctic high pressure ridge will cover almost all of BC and parts of the western Prairies. It follows on the heels of unseasonably mild weather through most of January.

The deep freeze should ease up by the middle of next week.