May long brought snow, up to 30 mm of rain to parts of southern Saskatchewan

Southern Saskatchewan’s May long weekend brought a little bit of everything, including rain, snow and cooler temperatures, but relief is on the horizon.

Brad Vrolijk, lead forecaster with Environment Canada, said a mix of rain and snow fell across southern Saskatchewan.

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“It was maybe one of the less-pleasant May long weekends in recent memory across much of the southern prairies in general, with the weather system that went through,” said Vrolijk.

“The event started as rain, and then eventually switched over to snow, and then some places switched back to rain as it was all tapering off yesterday.”

He said the Regina area got around 13 millimetres of rain, while Saskatoon got around eight mm over the weekend.

Vrolijk said around 10-20 mm fell across much of the region, with less rain hitting areas near the U.S. border. The heaviest rain fell between Estevan and Yorkton, east of Regina and close to the Manitoba border. He said that region saw around 20-30 mm of rainfall.

“The rain kind of lifted north, more towards the Trans Canada Highways, so down in Assiniboia, Rockglen areas and further south, they only got a couple millimeters out of this,” the forecaster explained.

While snow was also falling in parts of Saskatchewan over the weekend, Vrolijk said Environment Canada doesn’t have snowfall totals because the snow didn’t stick around for long in most areas. However, he said Moose Mountain, southeast of Regina, seemed like it got the most snow, a fact he attributed to its higher elevation.

“It’s a little bit cooler higher up, and so we saw the same thing in Manitoba as well, where the higher terrain and the riding mountains over western Manitoba also got mainly snow with this event instead of rain, so that slight difference in elevation can make a big difference in what you see falling out of the sky.”

Vrolijk said snowfall in May is not unheard of in Saskatchewan.

“Nobody wants it, but it’s definitely not uncommon for snow to be somewhere in the vicinity during the May long weekend,” he said.

“One year we can get a weekend like this, and another year it can be 25 degrees on the May long weekend. So it’s just kind of the thing to deal with, such large variability in the prairies at this time of year.”

Vrolijk said over the coming days, southern Saskatchewan will likely see the end of the cooler temperatures.

“It looks like generally a return to more seasonal temperatures, with highs moving back up into the upper teens or low 20s, even maybe above seasonal temperatures early next week,” Vrolijk explained.

“We’ll see about that, but it’s considerably warmer, pretty much for southern Saskatchewan, over the next five days.”

But Vrolijk said chances of rain showers or scattered thundershowers will also stick around for the next few days.