Snow hits Saskatchewan before May long weekend, but warm-up coming

The May long weekend is often seen as the unofficial start to summer, but it doesn’t feel like it this year.

There was snow in some parts of the province Thursday night and early Friday morning.

May… snow! We may be knocking on the door of the unofficial start of summer but Mother Nature has other ideas! This was earlier today along Highway 44 east of Loreburn! #SKstorm pic.twitter.com/xo9bkkObKk

— Micheal Lam (@referee_11) May 20, 2022

On Friday morning, Environment Canada meteorologist Dan Fulton recapped what happened and discussed what’s coming for the long weekend.

He pointed out it wasn’t a lot of snow.

“Nothing significant, but as you go further east … the ground is pretty white … But for Saskatchewan, it looks like just enough to turn the ground white east of Regina, so nothing too much,” he said.

Saskatchewan.
May 19.
Not kidding. #hockeyweather pic.twitter.com/BjD6t1pGtN

— Greg Johnson (@TornadoGreg) May 20, 2022

The snow also made for rough highway conditions.

At 11 p.m. Thursday, the Highway Hotline issued travel not recommended advisories on Highway 16 from Dafoe past Foam Lake, as well as many of the surrounding secondary highways.

The advisories were lifted at about 6 a.m. Friday.

Fulton weighed in on what likely caused the bad roads.

“I’m going to guess in this case that that was probably snow that melted, snow that hit the road and then froze into that icy mess you get when there’s snow on an already wet roadway,” he said.

So, after a taste of winter, what’s next?

Well, things could be nice by the time you’re out at the lake, depending on when you leave.

“So, (Friday) is not particularly a good day,” Fulton said with a chuckle.

He pointed at cool temperatures across the province, as well as a chance of rain.

But don’t give up hope.

“It actually gets better and better as the weekend goes on,” he said.

In Regina and southern Saskatchewan, the high temperature for Saturday is forecast at 10 C. It warms up to 15 C on Sunday and 19 C on Monday.

It’s similar in Saskatoon and central Saskatchewan, where the high temperature for Saturday will be 13 C. It will rise to 16 C on Sunday and 19 C on Monday.

While those are definitely higher temperatures than we’ve seen lately, they’re still quite chilly for this time of year according to Fulton.

“Normal for this time of year is around highs of 20 C. So that kind of gives you an idea of how unusually cold it is,” he said.