UPDATE: Balzac Billy says EARLY spring!

Balzac Billy will be getting ready to do his annual prediction this morning (February 2).

While Alysa Pederson, a Decision Support Meteorologist with Environment Canada, can't necessarily wager in, she does say the long-range seasonal forecast from now until April is showing weather conditions to be... "I can't really speak to Groundhog Day, or if he'll see his shadow or not, but I can tell you our seasonal forecast available on Environment Canada's website does say for the period February, March and April this year that we're looking at a little bit below normal."

To start things off Cochranites will see a cooling trend beginning this weekend. "The change has started to occur already. There is a surface high-pressure system that is moving into Alberta from the Northwest Territories and with it, it is bringing a whole bunch of cold air. Calgary, Cochrane, Springbank all that area is going to be sitting in the minus teens for most of the weekend."

Today (February 2) we will be closer to the minus twenty mark and if you were hoping to see more snow, your wish will be granted. "With this cold air and warm air still pushing in from the Pacific, we're getting snowfall which will move from North Western Alberta on the Rocky Mountains all the way down through South Eastern Alberta so it going to be bringing some much-needed snow. Calgary should be getting snow mostly on Saturday."

Pedersen shares that while there are hints that a warm up will occur next week, she isn't about to put money on it. "There are hints that by the end of next week we may be warming up to the zero mark but typically when these things happen the cold does hang around. I don't have high confidence in the warm-up at this time."

We will update the story once we know what our legendary groundhog, Balzac Billy, has to say.