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Get ready for a few chilly days across Saskatchewan.
After a significant snowstorm hammered the province on Tuesday and Wednesday, cold warnings from Environment Canada blanketed much of western and central Saskatchewan on Thursday morning, including Regina and Saskatoon.
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“Conditions will moderate during the day for some areas but very cold wind chills will return overnight through the rest of the week,” the weather service said in a statement.
Cold warnings were in effect on Thursday morning for large parts of western and central Saskatchewan, including Saskatoon and Regina. (Environment Canada)
As the system that brought a big dump of snow to the province tapers off, a ridge of high pressure is making its way into Saskatchewan, bringing cold, Arctic air along with it.
Meteorologist Danielle Desjardins said the province can expect temperatures well below normal throughout the rest of February.
Over the next four to five days, Desjardins said daytime highs will likely sit in the -20 C range, with overnight lows creeping towards -30 C. She said wind chills could register around -40 C.
“Looking at a couple of cold nights across the province,” added meteorologist Chris Stammers.
According to Environment Canada’s forecast, Regina can expect a high of -19 C on Thursday, dropping to -24 C overnight. Saskatoon is even colder, with a forecast high of -21 C and an overnight low of -28 C.
Stammers said the normal high in Regina this time of year is around -6 C and the typical overnight low is around -18 C.
But Stammers the extreme cold should be out of the province by Monday, with flurries and light snow expected early next week.
The dramatic shift comes after the first two weeks of February saw record-breaking warmth in many parts of the province.
“It was kind of a false spring, if you want to call it that, for a couple of weeks there, and kind of a rude awakening back towards normal February weather,” Stammers said.
Sask. Highway Hotline records nearly 2.5 million hits during storm
In 36 hours, Saskatchewan’s Highway Hotline tallied nearly 2.5 million visits.
Dan Palmer, senior communications consultant with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Highways, said the weather this week brought ever-changing conditions to the roads. That meant plenty of people were turning to the Highway Hotline to stay informed and make safe decisions before heading out on the roads.
Between midnight on Tuesday and noon on Wednesday, the hotline’s website and mobile app logged more than 2.49 million visits, according to Palmer.
He said falling snow and wind caused drifting on many highways around the province.
“This means my teammates out in the snow plows on the road, they have to slow down to stay in control to safely plow the snow, which also means sometimes that work can take a little longer,” Palmer explained, asking for patience from people in the province navigating highways in the wake of the storm.
He emphasized the importance of staying up to date on the changing weather conditions before any travel and checking the highway conditions before departing.
“The weather’s constantly changing,” Palmer said, adding that the hotline is continually updated to reflect the current conditions.
While road conditions had improved significantly by Thursday morning, the hotline was recommending against travel on several routes in the areas around Prince Albert, Melfort and Tisdale.
Some Sask communities got more than a foot of snow
Several Saskatchewan communities are still shoveling snow after this week’s storm.
Stammers said Regina and Saskatoon got each around 19 cm of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday, but other parts of the province were hit much harder.
“There was a very narrow band of heavy snow that ran from east of Regina up towards Prince Albert that saw amounts in the kind of 50 cm range,” Stammers said.
“Pretty bad in Regina, but even worse elsewhere in the province.”
Stammers said some of the hardest-hit areas included Meadow Lake and Buffalo Narrows, as well as Prudhomme, where around 50 cm of snow fell.
Prince Albert saw around 35 cm of snow during the storm, Stammers added.
–with files from 650 CKOM’s Libby Gray and 980 CJME’s Abby Zieverink
