Environment and Climate Change Canada is confirming what many of us suspected -- spring has certainly been cooler than what we would normally expect.

Meteorologist Justin Shelley says a cooler trend was experienced over many parts of the southern Prairies and that includes southern Manitoba.

"For Portage, specifically, the overall mean temperature for the month of April was 0.9 degrees, and the normal for the month of April was 4.3, so, 3.4 degrees below normal," says Shelley. "This made it the 23rd coolest April on record and those records consist of 128 years."

We're definitely going to see a change in the pattern here coming up in the next couple of days. A large upper ridge is building over the western part of the country which is shifting toward Manitoba.

"Portage's forecast right now, has low 20s Wednesday through Friday, and overall, the pattern looks to be staying relatively the same on the larger scale," says Shelley. "We're looking at above-normal first week of May, and above-normal second week of May. This pattern is likely going to stick around for quite a while."

He notes a potential system is coming in at the end of the week which could break up the heat and bring an isolated thunderstorm for Saturday or Sunday. You can see the latest on the weather here.