Spring hasn't sprung yet. Wintery conditions hit Calgary and surrounding areas

The calendar may have marked the first day of spring as March 19, but the weather in southern Alberta says otherwise.

Snow hit the region late Tuesday.

A snowfall warning has been issued to Calgary and surrounding areas that is expected to last through the week — southern Alberta can expect 10 to 30 centimetres of snow by Friday morning.

Alysa Pederson, Environment and Climate Change Canada's warning preparedness meteorologist, says it's "quite the change" from Sunday's balmy temperatures.

As of Wednesday morning, Calgary has already seen eight centimetres of snow at the airport. The snowfall is expected to ease in the afternoon before intensifying again through the remainder of the week.

Pederson says Calgary can expect 15 to 25 cm of snow throughout this longer snowfall duration. Temperatures are expected to stay cold, reaching lows of –10 C overnight, but are expected to rebound to normal seasonal ranges next week.

"Pretty good snow dump over 2½ days for parts of southern Alberta," she said.

The southern Alberta-focused meteorologist also says the south end of Calgary and Red Deer can expect to be hit the hardest. 

"Typically March and April, especially in Calgary, are the snowiest months of the year. With this event, we could be right on par with what our normal snowfall might be for Calgary."

But in the face of drought, this dump of snow won't solve Alberta's moisture problem.

"Say we get 25 centimetres of snow. When we actually melt that 25 centimetres, we're really only getting maybe 15 to 20 millimetres of actual liquid," said Pederson.

"This snowfall event, while it's really nice to have and it does help … one snowfall event likely isn't going to make too much of a difference because the actual water content in that snow isn't very high."

And as drought looms over the province, this March snowfall still has an important role to play in potentially replenishing the snowpack in the mountains.

John Pomeroy is the Canada research chair in Water Resources and Climate Change with the University of Saskatchewan. He's based in Canmore, Alta., and says any moisture helps, especially up in the mountains.