Winter weather has returned to the capital and while temperatures are expected to warm up Tuesday, snow, ice and freezing rain could be on the way.
A special weather statement calls for snow, ice pellets and freezing rain possible Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night.
"A mix of snow and ice pellets is expected to move into the area Wednesday afternoon and persist into Wednesday night. Freezing rain is possible before precipitation change over to rain overnight or early Thursday morning," Environment Canada says. "Snow and ice pellets amounts of up to 5 cm is possible, However, at this time there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the ice accretion of freezing rain."
Ottawa did not break a cold temperature record Monday, but it came close. The low temperature recorded at the Ottawa Airport at 7 a.m. was -13.2 C, a little over a degree warmer than the 1940 record of -14.4 C.
Ottawa reached a high of -8 C at 5 p.m.
Tonight will be mainly cloudy and temperatures will fall to -10 C overnight, but it will feel more like -18 C with the wind chill.
Things will warm up Tuesday with a high of -1 C. Skies will be clear, but it will be windy in the morning with gusts of up to 40 km/h.
The wind chill will make it feel more like -18 C in the morning, and more like -7 C in the afternoon.
Wednesday's forecast high is 1 C. By Thursday, the temperature is expected to rise into the double digits, hitting a forecast high of 13 C.
