Southeast Saskatchewan is no stranger to a long winter, however, May so far has seen temperatures up into the plus 30s with the familiar dry and windy conditions of a Saskatchewan summer.
Warning and preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, Danielle Desjardins, explains the early heat is due to number of factors.
“Sometimes we will have a strong El Nino or La Nina signal, which would have an influence over the overall pattern of the jet stream, so that will either contribute to whether it's cooler or warmer overall. And then other times, it depends on the amount of snowfall we get over the winter and how fast and quickly it melts, because once we lose that snowpack, it's a lot easier for the atmosphere to heat up the ground.”
“The main factor that's contributing to this current spell of warmer weather is an overall upper ridge of high pressure. So that's bringing in quite warm air from the Pacific. It's also fairly dry at this time of year as it's before the green up is occurring.”
Desjardins says this applies to the overall conditions, but day-to-day weather can see a lot more variation. Wind, however, is affected by the lack of wind protection from trees and land formations, as well as the pressure gradient.
“When we get stronger lows and high pressures, that difference between them, we're going to get stronger winds with the pressure gradient between low and high pressure systems.”
This weekend is expected to see temperatures climb into the mid 30s; Desjardins says we may even break some temperature records. The standing records are 30.6 degrees on May 10th and 30 degrees on May 11th.
She reminds people in the southeast to remember sun protection, saying it can be harder to detect the effects of the sun and heat when coupled with the dry conditions.
“When it's drier like this, you don't quite feel the heat as much as you do when it's more humid. The sun is deceptively strong at this time of year.”
Despite the weekend outlook, Desjardins emphasizes that it is still spring and the risk of conditions like frost can’t be completely ruled out. Next week is already set to see temperatures return to seasonal.
“There still is seasonal temperatures and possibly even below seasonal temperatures coming up for next week. So, I mean a parka, a little bit of a stretch, but we still could see below normal temperatures and below freezing temperatures up until the end of May.”