It's going to be a long, cold, and messy winter across much of Canada, according to the seasonal forecast released Monday by The Weather Network.
November has already brought historically early snowfall in southern Ontario and power outages in the Prairies.
We could get cold weather similar to the Polar Vortex winters says Meteorologist Michael Carter.
"It is certainly a similar pattern in terms of the overall drivers. the forces that are going to be in play in the atmosphere to kind of help shape our jet stream and help shape our storm track and set us up for the winter to come," says Carter.
He says while Windsor-Essex sometimes escapes the worst of winter, we might not this time.
"Sometimes some of our really bitterly cold shots don't make quite enough southward progress," he says. "But this year with the pattern that we're seeing we're expecting really strong northerly, northwesterly flow out there throughout a lot of the winter."
Carter says the recent snowfall is not likely to stay all season.
"The taste of winter that we've had so far is just that, it's kind of an appetizer. We're not totally into the season yet. So we're not going to be locked in for a little while yet December's probably going to feature some back and forth, some periods of unsettled weather as well as some milder periods."
Carter says the only areas to get a milder winter are the two coasts.
— with files from AM800's Patty Handysides