Sunny and above seasonal today but winter weather on the horizon

Sun today, but winter is back on its way. Gina Martin has a look at the five-day forecast from the Sky Watch Weather Centre.

It’s a classic week of March weather with a little bit of everything in store for Calgary.

The brief blast of snow that swept through the city on Monday made for a cooler start today, but ample sunshine and warm westerly winds at 20 to 40 km/h this afternoon will get Calgary back over seasonal on Tuesday with a high of 6 C.

Wednesday is shaping up to be fairly mild as well with building cloud in the afternoon and a high of 5 C.

But temperatures take a stark turn from there.

An atmospheric river is on its way to the West Coast. Once it makes landfall on Wednesday, it will develop into a stateside low pressure system that will work its way into the B.C. interior and southern Alberta come Thursday morning.

While this system moves in, we will also experience a dip in our temperatures as a cold and dry Arctic air mass pushes in to southern Alberta overnight Wednesday.

The cold, dry air from the north will clash with the warm, moist air coming up from the south to create messy conditions for commuters on Thursday morning.

Snow showers will continue throughout Thursday afternoon with a chance of scattered flurries heading into Friday as well.

Up to three centimetres of snow could accumulate in the Calgary area, with greater values at higher elevations.

The wet weather will start to subside by the weekend, but the cooler temperatures look to be sticking around heading into next week.