The southeast is getting battered today as heavy winds are hitting the area, causing Environment and Climate Change Canada to issue a wind warning. Speeds are expected to ramp up around noon to around 90 km/h, dropping by the evening to manageable levels.
Meteorologist Crawford Luke takes a look at what's blowing into the southeast.
"We had a cold front pass through a little earlier, and there's just a really strong pressure gradient in behind it, so the air pressure is rising quite rapidly. When we see that happen, we typically see some pretty strong winds come with it, and that's kind of what we're seeing today. It looks like the worst of this kind of just ramping up now across much of the southeast. "
"It looks like the worst event for Estevan is probably going to be from noon through to about 3-4 o'clock this afternoon. Looks like by this evening, things will be subsiding a little bit. It's going to remain breezy through the evening and through the night tonight, but the strongest winds look to be kind of from lunchtime through this afternoon before it kind of moves into North Dakota and the sun goes down, and both those things will kind of cause our winds to ease up a bit after that."
While we've had our windy days throughout the summer, this is one of the only times a wind warning has been issued in a while by Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Luke explains the qualifications for a wind warning and how they came up with those.
"Our wind warnings are kind of based on wind gusts hitting 90 kilometres an hour. Obviously, we see windy days quite frequently across Saskatchewan, but today in particular should be extra windy. That 90 kilometres an hour threshold, it's not a perfect threshold, but basically it was kind of arrived at through some studies that suggested that that was kind of the wind speed where we started to really notice damage to property."
That includes branches breaking off trees, roof shingles coming off, and loose items being picked up by the wind.
As the wind picks up, Luek cautions people to be aware of what items might end up blowing away today.
"If people haven't already, if they're able to, this would be a good time to pack up some loose items. If you have any children's toys out in the yard, or if you want to tie down your barbecue or put away your patio furniture, anything like that. Maybe close up your patio umbrella or your gazebo, those sorts of things that could get caught by the wind."
As a final reminder, Luke cautions people to be careful on the highways, which can often see very strong winds.
"If you are having to drive on the highways, just keep in mind, it's going to be windy today. These winds are going to be out of the northwest. So in particular, if you're driving kind of perpendicular to that direction, you'll really feel it on your vehicle. If you are hoping to avoid the worst winds, then again, if you're able to just wait till this evening, they'll still be strong, but they'll be a lot weaker than they will be this afternoon."
Luke says adverse weather will continue past today, as we're likely to see frost come in at the start of the weekend.