With the first week of true unpleasantly cold temperatures of the winter coming to a close, it doesn’t look like it’s going to warm up in Kamloops and the Okanagan any time soon.

“That is the question, isn’t it? How long is this cold air going to last? Because if we look through this weekend, early part of next week, it’s certainly sticking around,” Environment Canada meteorologist Alyssa Charbonneau told iNFOnew.ca. “The trend is that probably as we head into the latter half of February, we will see things warming up.”

Kamloops is expecting sunny days with highs around -7 Celsius this weekend, and overnight lows around -16 C.

Most of the Okanagan including Kelowna, Vernon, and Penticton are expecting similar temperatures around -7 C during the day and -15 C overnight. There’s a slight chance of light flurries in the Okanagan over the weekend.

Travellers taking mountain passes like the Okanagan Connector and Coquihalla Highway should brace for cold temperatures but there’s a low chance of snow this weekend.

The dry weather isn’t the best news for mountain sport fanatics.

“Unfortunately, we aren’t really seeing any pattern right now for this weekend that would bring any kind of significant snowfall to the mountains of the Interior of BC, which I know is perhaps not what those looking to go skiing or snowboarding are hoping to hear,” Charbonneau said.

It appears that the air mass bringing this cold dry weather is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

“This Arctic air mass that made its way south into the Interior is not going anywhere anytime soon,” she said.