John Barker
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 06/01) - Now that you took your parka back out for last week's blizzard -- or never put it away -- you may as well leave it out. Just in case.

It's cold and it's going to stay cold for the next week or two," says Serge Besner, a forecaster with Environment Canada's Arctic Weather Centre in Edmonton.

Besner says there's a cold weather pattern in place over all of western Canada, with the exception of Vancouver Island.

"Basically, a ridge of high pressure that usually is farther east this time of year is well west of where it normally is," he said.

"That's allowing cold air to sink south from the Arctic and setting up a storm track farther west than normal."

Besner said colder-than-normal temperatures will prevail for much of May from Inuvik to Fort Smith and from Yellowknife to Fort Liard, including such traditional NWT spring hot spots as the Deh Cho and Mackenzie Valley.

A major spring snowstorm formed over northern Alberta last Wednesday, becoming stationary over the Southern Mackenzie, while delivering the South and North Slave regions their first blizzard of 2002 -- on May 2 and 3.

The late spring could also mean a very late ferry opening across the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence, Besner says. The latest the ferry has taken its first trip was May 31, 1962. The ice bridge closed April 23.