Cold, snowy spring ahead, Environment Canada meteorologist says

The first day of spring is fast approaching, but an Environment Canada meteorologist says cold and snow will grip Alberta for a while longer. 

"It's been a winter with a lot of variability across the province and generally as we move into spring that variability in the weather just increases," Environment Canada meteorologist Kyle Fougère told the Calgary Eyeopener. 

He expects the tail end of winter and beginning of spring to be colder and precipitation to be near normal, or slightly above it. 

"We're going to see these cooler temperatures stick around for a while." 

In Red Deer and Calgary March is the snowiest month on average, and that's likely to hold true this year as well. 

"As we move into the spring months we're expecting it to be colder than normal, we're expecting there to be some heavy snowfalls, which is kind of normal for this time of year. We can really just expect there to be more variability," Fougère said. 

"A lot of times your perception of what the winter was like is just what happened in your location. But when you look at the whole province, it has been weird," Fougère said.

Central and northern parts of the province have seen above normal precipitation — Cold Lake has had its snowiest winter on record, and it's been like that for most of the central part of the province. 

But southeastern parts of the province — Calgary, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat — had well below normal precipitation, Fougère said.

"A lot of people that are in southern Alberta have been thinking this has been a very dry winter, but that really hasn't been the case for the central and northern parts of the province." 

Crews are out clearing a blanket of snow from city streets. 

In an email Christopher McGeachy, city roads spokesperson, said crews are focused on high traffic routes, which includes Memorial Drive, Crowchild Trail and Glenmore Trail.

Extreme cold temperatures can lead to areas of icy buildup in intersections, bridge decks and hills. 

Crews will also be focused on other important pieces of transportation infrastructure including designated sections of pathway, wheelchair ramps, downtown cycle tracks and sidewalks adjacent to city owned property.