Saskatchewan as a whole is seeing a shift in weather patterns as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced that the current El Nino system has ended.
After having that system exist through the winter, a change in weather patterns could mean this winter will see a very different outcome.
Environment Canada Meteorologist Terri Lang talks about the changing of patterns.
"Looks like El Nino is officially dead and we're now in a neutral period or La Nada period and it is forecast to turn into La Nina through the fall and then staying around for the winter. I haven't seen any projections yet on whether or not it's supposed to be a week La Nina, a moderate La Nina, or a strong La Nina."
Depending on the strength of that system we could be in for a snowy, cold winter this year.
"We only have sort of correlations with moderate to strong La Ninas for winters and that's usually the only correlation we have, is through the winter time, and if it's a moderate to strong, there's a greater possibility of a colder than average and wetter than average winter," said Lang. "We just had El Nino this past winter and before that, we had 3 La Nina winters so it's triple dip, and not all of them sort of lived up to that forecast. So we'll have to see how strong it's going to get."
While the forecast is already uncertain when it comes to what effect a La Nina would have, Lang says the current neutral system would also mess with any predictions.
"If it were to stay neutral, it just makes it a lot harder to put any forecast out there just because you don't really have anything to hang your hat on, so the neutral conditions aren't great for long-term forecasting. It's not that we're great at it anyway, but it makes it even harder."