The first big snowfall of the season is on its way to central and southern Manitoba.

An Alberta clipper is currently moving through central Saskatchewan and is on its way to central and southern Manitoba.

Portions of the Parklands and western Manitoba are under a snowfall warning, with 10-20 centimetres of snow expected to fall in the area.

Rose Carlsen, meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, says that when the snow starts to hit Winnipeg and the Red River Valley area, we're not anticipating the snowfall amounts to reach the snowfall warning criteria. 

"We are expecting a prolonged light snowfall, starting this morning until tomorrow evening, where we could see up to 15 cm of snow over the course of 36 hours."

Carlsen says to reach snowfall warning criteria, we would have to see 10 centimetres of snowfall over 12 hours.

"It is still a pretty impactful amount of snow over that amount of time, and it's kind of our first real snowfall of the season," Rose explained." If this was a more typical winter, where we already had a bunch of snow on the ground, this might not be a situation where we would issue a special weather statement. However, since this winter has been warm and pretty low on the precipitation, it was just another measure we decided to take."

The Alberta clipper is also expected to bring strong wind gusts from the northwest, creating situations where blowing snow and reduced visibility may become an issue. 

Once the system rolls out Thursday evening, cooler temperatures are expected to roll in.