Josh Classen's forecast: Slight warming trend begins today

Seasonal temperatures today CTV Edmonton's Cory Edel has your Thursday forecast.

Temperatures will start to moderate in the Edmonton area today, although it will continue to be well below average in east-central and northeast Alberta.

Some of the milder air that's been sitting over western and southern Alberta the past few days will start to push a bit further west through the day.

After two straight days with afternoon temperatures around -10 C, we should get to the -4 C range in Edmonton early this afternoon.

We'll keep the clouds and might even see a few flurries in the Edmonton region this morning, but there should be some sunny breaks this afternoon.

It won't be bright, blue skies for Friday/Saturday...but there should be a bit more sun than we've had the last few days.

Temperatures will get to the -4/-5 C range again Friday and then Saturday looks slightly "warmer."

There's an area of low pressure that'll move in from the west on Saturday. That'll definitely push some warm air up from the south. The questions are: How warm? and How far north?

I think we'll get close to 0 C Saturday afternoon in the Edmonton region. (If you've been paying attention all week, we WERE expecting to be near 0 C Friday, but the system has developed a bit later than earlier projections.)

That low-pressure system crosses through central Alberta Saturday night/early Sunday and brings snow to northern Alberta through the weekend.

It doesn't look like we'll see much (if any) snow inand around Edmonton, although we can't rule out a few flurries for Sunday as some cooler air drops in behind that system.

Speaking of which, we could be dealing with an inverted temperature pattern Sunday.

As of right now, it looks like temperatures will stay in the -2 C to -5 C range early Sunday morning and then start to drop through the day as the northerly flow behind the low-pressure system develops.

Looking LONG Range:

The cooldown continues through into early next week. There's still a fair amount of uncertainty with just HOW COLD it's going to get. But...we should expect daytime highs somewhere in the -10 C to -15 C range for Monday-Wednesday in Edmonton and mornings close to -20 C.

Once again, it appears we'll have even colder air sitting over eastern and northern Alberta, while western and southern parts of the province see that colder air just kind of "glance off" them and temperatures stay rather mild.

Here's the forecast for Edmonton and area:

Today - Morning clouds. 30% chance of flurries. Afternoon sunny breaks.

High: -4

Tonight - Mostly cloudy overnight.

9pm: -8

Friday - Mix of sun & cloud.

Morning Low: -10

Afternoon High: -4

Saturday - Mix of sun & cloud.

Morning Low: -10

Afternoon High: -2

Sunday - Partly cloudy.

Temperature falling through the day.

8am: -4

Afternoon: -7

Monday - Mix of sun & cloud.

Morning Low: -17

Afternoon High: -12

Tuesday - Mostly cloudy. 30% chance of flurries.

Morning Low: -18

Afternoon High: -13