By Record staff

WATERLOO REGION — An extreme cold warning has been issued as a blast of Arctic air rolls into southern Ontario for the Valentine's Day weekend.

With the wind chill, the forecast early morning low of -23 C will feel more like -38 C in the Kitchener area. The expected afternoon high of -17 C will feel like -30 C with west winds of 20 km/h, gusting to 40 km-h, on Saturday.

But it's far short of the record cold mark for Feb. 13: -29.1 C. That was set a year ago in the heart of a brutal, 43-day run of below-freezing days — the coldest streak in a century in what's now Waterloo Region.

Winter 2016 hasn't seen anything like last year's polar vortex.

"It seems incredible, but we're so much the opposite of what we had last year," said Etienne Gregoire, a meteorologist at Environment Canada.

"It's the very first time we've had a taste of cold weather (this winter). And we're only a few weeks away from the first official day of spring."

Until this weekend, February's average temperature was slightly above normal. So was January's. December was the warmest on record.

Gregoire expects this little cold streak to drag the month back to average temperatures. Around normal temperatures are expected to continue into March, he said.

On Sunday before dawn, an overnight low of -26 C is expected. That would smash the record for the day of -24.1 C, set in 1979.

A high of -12 C and sunny skies are expected on Sunday, before the cold snap breaks.

"We're back up to basically average as early as Monday, with daytime temperatures up to just below the freezing point," Gregoire said.

There's a chance of a bit of snow in the Kitchener area on Saturday, as northwest winds set up over the warm, open waters of Lake Huron. It's more likely the London area will be take the brunt of any snow squalls off the lake over the weekend, Gregoire said.

As of Thursday, 6.6 centimetres of snow were recorded in February at the Region of Waterloo International Airport weather station. The normal for the month is 30 centimetres.