Slushy blanket of snow covers southern Saskatchewan

People in southern Saskatchewan woke up to a blanket of snow on the ground Tuesday, and more snow is on the way.

About six centimetres of snow fell in Regina overnight.

The Highway Hotline shows snow fell throughout the southern half of the province, with only the southwest seeming to avoid the worst of it.

Early Tuesday morning, travel was not recommended on some highways north of Kindersley, north of Regina, and west and south of Moose Jaw.

A line of semi trucks was parked outside the Husky station on Tuesday morning, as drivers waited for the roads to clear.

“It was kinda single lane, you couldn’t make a distinction between two lanes, you had to stay pretty much up the middle to be sure you weren’t heading for the ditch,” said Norm, who drove from Saskatoon to Regina and got in around 2 a.m..

But he admits this winter has been very easy compared to most.

“We have been so spoiled, this is like the first blast of winter and we’re into spring already,” he said.

Most travel advisories were lifted early on Tuesday afternoon, but some areas around the southeast were still reporting slippery conditions.

See the latest alerts from the Highway Hotline.

People traveling on the Trans-Canada Highway between Moose Jaw and Regina reported slushy conditions, with vehicles slowing to 60 kilometres per hour.

Rob Roy drove from Brandon, MB to Regina Tuesday morning, and he said Highway 1 was pretty bad.

“(It was) 40 kilometres an hour for about an hour, tractor trailers in the ditch everywhere, RCMP, and then it just started warming up and getting slowly faster and faster and you know, everybody’s pretty careful out there,” he said.

The Regina Police Service had reports of at least 13 collisions in the city between midnight at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. Only two of those collisions had injuries.

If you see conditions on the road others should know about, text 306-306 or email webnews@rawlco.com.

Beyond the traffic issues, people all around Regina spent the morning breaking out the shovels and digging out driveways.

Snow was certainly not the surprise Judy wanted to wake up to in east Regina.

“Awful, because it’s my birthday and I’m not supposed to be doing this,” she said, pointing to the shovel.

But she admits she has only had to shovel once or twice this winter, which is not bad at all compared to most winters.

“We have more snow now than we’ve had all winter,” Judy said.

Down the street, Sumay was also shoveling out the driveway and the front deck. He said we’ve been spoiled this winter, but he was still surprised to see so much snow so late in the spring.

On another residential street, Theresa said her first reaction this morning was, “winter is back”. She laughed over the idea that her snow shovels might have been lonely all winter.

“Oh yeah, it was hard to find them this morning,” she said.

Across the street, Douglas said he was almost happy when he woke up to snow.

“I had my snowblower fixed and I never used it all year, so I figured, well, it’s a good day to use it,” he said.

When asked if he could remember another winter like this one, he said it has been a long time. Still, he said once is enough to use his snowblower this winter, then he hopes to get back to enjoying the spring.

Environment Canada predicts another two to four centimetres of snow to fall in southern Saskatchewan Tuesday.