Sask. set for 'spectacular situation' with string of warm November days

It was almost exactly month ago Saskatchewan was hit with a blast of cold air, rain and snow. Now, the forecast has flipped on its head.

Environment Canada is calling for sunshine and double-digit highs across the province in the first week of November.

“Because of such a balmy start, we think that November will come out to be milder than normal,” said David Phillips, senior climatologist for Environment Canada.

“The other thing that impresses me so much is just the longevity of it. It could be a week of just temperatures that are 10, 11 degrees warmer than normal.”

Starting Thursday, Saskatoon is predicted to reach a high of 13 C, continuing in that range until at least next Monday.

Similar conditions are being called for across southern Saskatchewan. In Regina, Sunday is expected to be the sunniest with a high of 16 C.

In the northern part of the province, highs are looking to hover around 10 C ahead of the weekend.

The change from grey skies to sunshine is a far cry from last month, when Saskatchewan saw the wettest October on record in the past 30 years.

“There were 13 wet days, 15-plus centimetres of snow – twice as much as what you would normally get,” Phillips said.

“It’s almost as if nature woke up and said, ‘Well this is October, not January,’ and then it turned right around.”

Phillips called the upcoming string of warm days a “spectacular situation” for November.

The senior climatologist cited a powerful jet stream in the pacific as the cause for the high temperatures, adding the stream is pushing warm air right across the country, into the prairies and even into eastern Canada.

He also said it’s a “million-dollar forecast” for farmers, many of whom thought they had lost their unharvested crops to snow until the melt next spring.

Phillips cautioned, however, this month can be fickle when it comes to forecasts, adding he regularly observes the greatest changes in weather between October and November.