Saskatchewan is preparing for the long weekend, which is coming up soon, with plenty of people hoping to get some relaxation in and see some beautiful weather in the forecast. While that may appear ideal at first, the current conditions may change drastically over the next few days.
Environment and Climate Change Canada Meteorologist Crawford Luke says that, looking generally at the weekend, conditions will be average.
"It looks like generally the temperature is near seasonal average, which is kind of nice. It's been a little cool recently, so warming up a little bit in that sense. As far as the weather is concerned, other than temperature, it looks like Friday is probably our best chance at a sunny day."
Once we get further into the week, Luke says we'll see an unstable system roll into the southeast, which means a chance of rain throughout.
"Saturday, Sunday, Monday, each day looks like it kind of has a low chance for a thunderstorm or rain shower in the late afternoon, evening hours. Probably not a widespread thunderstorm risk, so it's something like not everyone's going to see it, but there could be a thunderstorm for someone within the southeast Saskatchewan area."
Smoke has also been in the southeast over the past week, but Luke expects that to filter out as we progress through the weekend.
"As far as air quality is concerned, hoping for some good news there. The expectation is for the air quality to continue improving. So right now we're in the moderate risk range. We're expecting that to kind of stay in the low to moderate risk range over the next several days. The wind direction is kind of out of the south, which is a more favourable wind direction."
"We're not getting fresh smoke from fires up north at least, so that's good news. But I guess the problem now is there's just so much smoke across North America that there's still probably going to be lingering haze for much of the weekend. So it looks like air quality should be not too big a concern."
The main weather threat to watch for over the weekend will be potential thunderstorms, even if the forecast shows that the day will be clear of any systems.
"I know in our forecast, it only shows up when there's like a 30% chance of thunderstorms. So it might be a case where it's kind of like a 20% chance."
Anyone who does encounter a thunderstorm this weekend while they're outside should make sure to seek shelter immediately.