Extreme cold warnings blanket Western Canada as winter officially arrives

A man uses a shovel to remove snow from the roof of a vehicle as snow falls in Vancouver, on Sunday, December 18, 2022. Temperature are dropping to dangerously cold extremes in some regions of British Columbia as snowfall send tires spinning in parts of Metro Vancouver. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Weather warnings or special weather statements are posted in every province and territory except Manitoba as winter storms or extreme cold usher in the official start of winter.

Environment Canada says wind chill values across all of Alberta and more than half of Saskatchewan will make it feel like minus 40 or colder, while some areas of northern Alberta, the Yukon and Northwest Territories will endure wind chill of minus 50.

The cold is expected to continue through this week and the weather office says 20 daily low temperature records were set in Alberta Tuesday, along with three in Yukon, including a record of -49.2 C in Watson Lake, breaking a mark set 67 years ago.

The arctic front that is pushing the frigid air south also extends over British Columbia, where most of the province is shivering under extreme cold or arctic outflow warnings as a high-pressure system shoots icy air from the Interior outward to the coast.

More than a dozen daily minimum temperature records were set Tuesday in B.C., including -47 C west of Williams Lake, while the arctic outflows are numbing usually balmy areas such as Victoria and Metro Vancouver where wind chill values are forecast to reach -20 C.

BC Housing has opened emergency warming centres in communities across the province as concern grows that the extreme conditions could be deadly for the province's vulnerable residents.