It may still be the fall, but Old Man Winter is about to make an appearance in Saskatchewan.
Environment Canada issued a special weather statement Thursday, warning of snow for much of southern Saskatchewan.
“We’ve got a low-pressure system set to form in Alberta on Friday morning and that’s going to track southeastward spreading snowfall across southwestern Saskatchewan through the day on Friday,” Environment Canada meteorologist Blaine Lowry said.
Lowry said the snowfall will begin in areas like the Cypress Hills during the morning Friday, with areas like those around Moose Jaw potentially not seeing any flakes until the afternoon.
The precipitation is expected to taper off Saturday after somewhere between five and 10 centimetres has fallen. The highest amounts are expected from Leader through Assiniboia.
Lowry said people shouldn’t be surprised by snow at this point in October.
“The thing this year is we’ve been a bit spoiled over the early part of October and through September with some fairly warm and dry conditions,” he said.
“This will come as a bit of a shock with the first real winter system coming through, but this is around that time when we can start to expect to see them moving through.”
High temperatures at this time of year are normally in the high single or low double digits, but Lowry said the mercury will be much lower than that in the coming days.
“For the better part of next week, for most parts of southern Saskatchewan, temperatures remain in that kind of slightly below to slightly above zero range,” he said. “It’s not until the following week that we potentially see things start to moderate a bit more.”