A wet, windy and perhaps snowy at times mid-week is in store over the three days as a slow moving low pressure system drags across the Dakotas and Minnesota today through Thursday.

"This moisture packed system has the classic characteristics of a Spring storm," noted CMOS Accredited Weathercaster Chris Sumner Tuesday morning. "Gusty winds, a snow rain mix and a reminder it’s not quite time to put the snow boots and parka away just yet."

Rain will lift northward out of the U.S. Tuesday morning, with somewhere between 5 and 10mm total expected through tonight. The winds will shift from southeast gusting to 50 km/h to northeast up to 50 km/h as the low pushes eastward.

"As the evening arrives, the sun sets and temperatures cool down, we'll see a change to light snow overnight," he said. "We’re expecting a pause from the precipitation for most of Wednesday, but it will be very windy with northerly winds up to 70 km/h developing on the back side of this system by lunch time tomorrow."

The second round of precipitation, at this point expected to be periods of snow due to the northerly flow pulling cooler air into the low, will begin Wednesday evening and last through a good portion of Thursday.

"We’re not expecting a lot of snow, and what does fall will be wet and much of it will melt on contact. Perhaps 5cms totals by the time the system starts to clear the area Thursday night."

Very windy conditions will continue Thursday, with northerly gusts in the 60 to 70 km/h range, once again.

Temperatures today through Thursday will be a few degrees below average, around +3 to +5, with normals for this point in April 8 degrees daytime and -3 overnight.

"As we wrap up the week, sunshine returns Friday through Sunday, with seasonal highs returning too, reaching 8 to 10," said Sumner. "The take away for the next few days is you will get more use out of your rain gauge than snow-blower, with an extended period of of wet and windy conditions on the way as Southern Manitoba sees impacts from a pretty classic Spring system."

And for those who have something tweaking at the back of their mind about storms and April 5th, today marks the 25th anniversary of the blizzard which is considered the culprit for pushing the Red River Valley into what became the Flood of the Century in 1997. April 5th, 1997 what started as flurries ended up dropping around 50cms of snowfall in parts of Southern Manitoba, with Spring run-off levels essentially doubling because of the precipitation from the storm.

"To be clear, what we're going to get over the next three days will be nothing like that '97 blizzard, but is an interesting bit of weather trivia and history to see the dates line up like that," commented Sumner.