Spring has officially sprung though Manitoba isn’t entirely done with winter yet. 

Over the weekend, Environment Canada issued a special weather statement warning of a “significant” amount of moisture on tap for southern Manitoba. 

“At the time, it was unsure as to whether the precipitation we were going to see was going to be mostly rain or mostly snow,” says Environment Canada meteorologist Dave Carlson. “We’ve just updated the special weather statement to stress that is is likely going to be mostly rain.” 

As temperatures hover just above the freezing mark, 5 to 10 millimetres are expected to fall in southern Manitoba today with the “bulk” of the rain coming in the afternoon.

Tonight, the rain is expected to change into snow as temperatures cool off.

“But, it’s not going to last for very long,” says Carlson, who stresses a couple of centimetres at most are expected. “It’ll be a couple of hours and then (the snow) will just end.” 

“The airmass that we’re working with right now is going to be a touch too warm for there to be all that much snow.” 

Given the amount of snowfall over the winter, Carlson recognizes Manitobans’ concern over flooding this time of the year. 

“I’m not a flood forecaster, so I don’t know if this is going to make it worse in terms of flood potential for later in the year or if we’re actually going to melt off some of the snow that we’ve got slowly and then reduce the risk of flood later.”

“What I can say is that we’re going to be getting a little bit of rain today to just add more moisture to southern Manitoba,” says Carlson. 

Temperatures are expected to remain around seasonal this week, with colder weather expected to arrive of Friday. 

“We’re going to see a weak cold front pass through,” says Carlson. 

Slick conditions are likely expected. “Freezing up whatever is melting.”