‘Dramatic’ warm-up coming for Sask. after extreme cold

Stepping outside into the brutal cold on Monday, people across southern Saskatchewan might find it almost impossible to believe Tuesday’s forecast is calling for sweater weather.

In typical prairie fashion, the weather is bouncing up and down this week with an extreme cold warning on Monday and a high of 0 C on Tuesday.

Environment Canada meteorologist Terri Lang admits the province has been in a deep freeze so many times this winter, she is getting tired of talking about the cold.

“I want to stop reporting on cold quite a bit because it seems like that’s sort of all we’ve been talking about this winter,” commented Lang. “Except for those periods when it got really, really abnormally warm and then that was like ‘why is this happening’ and then boom we’re back into the deep freeze. So it’s just been a real roller-coaster of a ride this winter.”

Lang is happy to report southern Saskatchewan should be getting a reprieve from the extreme cold thanks to a warm chinook blowing in from the west on Tuesday.

“So we will see some dramatic warming up tomorrow so I think everybody’s going to run outside in their t-shirts,” she said Monday.

With strong winds picking up through the early morning when temperatures are still very cold, Lang explained the wind chill factor could be as low as -27 C.

“It looks like the temperature will actually get right to the 0 C mark by afternoon which I think it’s going to feel almost tropical,” Lang added.

The extreme cold warning Monday morning prompted Curl Saskatchewan to postpone the Crokicurl event to Tuesday.

The event which combines the board game of crokinole with curling rocks on a circular sheet of ice is set up in Regina’s Victoria Park. According to the Facebook post, Crokicurl will be extended to Saturday to make up for the lost day.