Yellowknife (Mar 26/03) - We're in for smooth sailing, greener pastures and the sun may just shine everyday.

Pick whatever weatherperson cliches you fancy -- winter is gone and spring is here, and we can expect a warm summer, according to one weather expert.

Pogo stick springer Daniel Bissell, 11, enjoys a bout of warm weather as winter turns to spring. - Darren Stewart/NNSL photo

Yellowknifers have seen the worst winter has to offer this year but will enjoy beautiful, mild weather from here on until summer, according to meteorologist Paul Rose, from the Arctic Weather Centre in Edmonton.

"You're looking pretty good," said Rose, speaking last Friday.

Last week and over the weekend a weather system brought warm air our way from northern British Columbia and temperatures sprung back up towards zero, he said.

"The reason why you've been so mild after you've been so cold is that you're getting a weather system straight off the Pacific, off the Queen Charlotte (islands) and it's bringing a lot of warm air with it."

Rose said with a colder system that made its way through the Yellowknife region over the first half of this week, temperatures will soon be on the rise again.

He said the Pacific system and the longer sunny days will quickly snowball into consistently warmer spring days.

"It's going to be really pleasant for all the people in the Yellowknife area," he said. "I certainly see no more -30s coming your way."

Rose said Alberta and the NWT had uncharacteristic cold snaps near the end of the winter this year.

"We got a good one this year," he said.

He blamed an Arctic vortex, which moved west from Hudson Bay. The ominously named weather pattern is the intense counter-clockwise rush of air responsible for pushing down a lot of the cold weather the South receives.

"The vortex placed itself right over Great Slave Lake," he said.

"Any time you're below an arctic vortex you're in for -30s C and -40s. We got a taste of it in Alberta as well."

Rose also speculated that Yellowknife is in for a very warm summer. "It's difficult to tell this early," he said. "But we tend to think that if you have a cold winter you'll get a hot summer."