Northern Ontario: Snowfall Outlook for Tuesday, January 4 - Wednesday, January 5, 2022

Forecast Discussion

A strengthening low-pressure system is expected to track into Northern Ontario late Tuesday and continuing into Wednesday. This system will bring the potential for widespread accumulating snowfall through the lower part of Northern Ontario with up to 20-30cm of accumulation by the end of Wednesday. In addition to the snow, we are also expecting some fairly strong winds to be associated with this system particularly around the shoreline of Lake Superior. The strongest gusts will occur during the overnight and into Wednesday morning which will collide with the heavy snowfall and likely result in blowing snow or even localized blizzard conditions.

Snowfall is expected to start sometime Tuesday afternoon with those around the Manitoba border seeing the first bands of precipitation. By the evening, the snow will extend across the region from Kenora to Cochrane. There is some uncertainty regarding how far north the precipitation will go and there will be a very tight gradient between who sees the 20-30cm of snow and those who see just a few flurries. We believe the cut-off will be somewhere north of a line from Dryden to Kapuskasing, but this may fluctuate as we get closer so keep in mind that the forecast might be a little more tricky in those areas.

Moderate to heavy snowfall will continue overnight across the region and linger into Wednesday morning. Again, we expect the worst condition will be found during the overnight hour as the heavy snow combines with the strong wind gusts to produce near-zero visibility on the roads. We should begin to see the snow tapper off and conditions improve starting just after sunrise on Wednesday for those in Northwestern Ontario. While Northeastern Ontario should expect to see persistent snowfall throughout the day on Wednesday with it moving out during the evening.

In terms of accumulation, a fairly expensive zone around Lake Superior from Thunder Bay and into Northeastern Ontario including Wawa, Chapleau and Timmins could pick up between 20-30cm of snow by the end of the system. There is the potential that a few locations may even exceed the 30cm mark, but it’s questionable and not all of the models agree on this. For the rest of Northeastern Ontario (Sudbury, Elliot Lake, Sault Ste. Marrie etc.) along with those in Kenora and Fort Frances, we’re looking at snowfall totals around 12-20cm by the end of Wednesday. As we mentioned, the gradient with the expected snowfall is quite tight so the snowfall totals will decrease substantially the further north you go as shown on our map.

Strong and potentially damaging wind gusts are possible through areas around Lake Superior. We may see gusts approach the 90km/h mark or even exceed it close to the shoreline. This is primarily during the early part of Wednesday but could continue throughout the day for those along the eastern shoreline of Lake Superior.