Freezing rain mostly done, cool May long weekend ahead

Freezing rain caused havoc for parts of Saskatchewan, but Environment Canada says that system has made its way out of the province.

Rain fell overnight Thursday and into Friday, with areas like Yorkton and southeastern Saskatchewan getting most of it, leading to reports of damage from it.

All of the freezing rain and snowfall warnings that were in place have been lifted.

Environment Canada meteorologist Terri Lang said for the most part, the energy has left the system and gone into Manitoba.

“Atmospheric conditions (necessary) for freezing rain to happen are really, really specific and they usually only exist for a short period of time, so this particular event was quite unusual. We usually don’t get long periods of freezing rain like this,” Lang said Friday.

She said Environment Canada doesn’t have an exact measurement of how much rain fell, but she believes a significant amount did.

“It doesn’t take a lot of freezing rain to really do a lot of damage,” Lang said.

She said the temperatures for the weekend should stay above 0 C, though Friday night could see some freezing again.

“We will probably see two sunny days. Temperatures will struggle to get above seasonal values but I think we will see those mid-teens,” she said. “But we will see the risk of frost across many parts of Saskatchewan on Saturday morning and into Sunday morning.”

And some more rain is on the way to the province next week, including the northern areas that didn’t get any this past week.

“We would normally frown at rain on the long weekend but the rain is so needed, I think everyone is going to be happy to see that rain,” Lang said.

She said this year is one of the top 10 driest Saskatchewan has ever been coming out of winter and into spring.