A slightly better weather week for southern Quebec

Nearly 25cm of wet snow fell across southern Alberta this past weekend in what has been a stupid spring to say the least across most of the country. (CTV News)

The weather typically settles down in May after the turbulent and changeable month of April. This May, not so much so far with lots of rain and even snow this past weekend. Montreal had plenty of rain as a very slow moving upper level low moved from the Ottawa Valley to the Gulf of Maine. Another 25mm or so fell over the city this past weekend as our wet, cool spring moves along. We remain below normal in the temperature department with the flowers and trees seeming to be two to three weeks behind schedule. It looks a little better today in southern Quebec with showers tapering off by noon and perhaps a peek or two of sunshine this afternoon. Temperatures will try to go north of 12 or 13C. Cool tonight down into the middle single digits with followed by a mix of clouds and sun for Tuesday and highs near 13C again. It looks like sunshine and mild temperatures of 17C for Wednesday, it what will likely be the best day of the week and of the month so far. At this time the Mother's Day weekend looks like a split with showers on Saturday but sunshine and warm highs near 21C (70F) for Sunday.

The Trans-Canada Highway in southern Alberta on Saturday.

Over the weekend we had an incredible mix of weather reported across western Canada south into the southern US plains. Calgary and the Rockies had over 20cm of wet snow, this after highs in the low 20's Friday. The snow caused a host of problems from power outages and downed trees to numerous accidents across southern Alberta. The same system also produced snow across the Dakotas and thunderstorms across the central plains. While the snow was forecast in Alberta, strong winds and dry weather helped fuel a major brush fire in southern Saskatchewan outside Swift Current that threatened northern parts of that community late last Thursday. Meanwhile south Texas had record breaking triple digit heat over the weekend with highs in the 90's to over 100F in several locations across the western portion of the state. More heat and very strong, dry southwest winds are forecast today with an elevated fire danger over northern portions of Texas into Oklahoma. A major brush fire in Oklahoma on Sunday destroyed several homes and led to 1 fatality.