By the time the sun rises Wednesday as much as 10 centimetres of snow will have blanketed the region.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that, starting Wednesday and continuing into the weekend, the temperature will climb well above zero and the snow and ice will melt.

“Using that windshield washer stuff is probably a good idea,” Environment Canada meteorologist Jim Steele said Tuesday.

Heavy, wet snow started falling Tuesday afternoon and was expected to continue until after midnight. If Steele’s forecast is true, this is the last of the white stuff we can expect to see for days.

The thermometer hovered around zero on Tuesday, and is forecast to climb to 4 C today and 5 C on Thursday. Steele said temperatures will remain the same through Sunday.

A daytime high of 1 C and an overnight low of – 6 C are the seasonal norm. He said it’s going to be unusually mild for the time of year.

Does this mean that winter is over? Hardly, said Steele.

“This is January. The next month is February. Come March, the middle of March, I could comfortably say that is it. Winter is over,” he said. “We still have February to deal with.”

As for the month that was, Steele said its been a typical January in Kamloops, with the expected mid-month cold snap.

He said the month’s coldest temperature of –17 C was recorded on Jan. 12.