It seems winter doesn’t want to let go in southern Saskatchewan. After a week of temperatures that accelerated the melt, Environment Canada issued a special weather statement Sunday advising a Colorado low will be sweeping through the region this week, bringing a significant amount of precipitation, particularly snow.
“It looks like Tuesday, for the most part, will be okay but late in the day it looks like that’s when the real weather will start moving in,” advised Terri Lang, a meteorologist with Environment Canada. “We are expecting snow to move into the area, continue through the night and through most of the day Wednesday and even persist through on Thursday. It looks like the bulk of the snow will fall on Wednesday.”
Lang added that the temperatures will be rapidly falling, and with the warm ground and temperatures during the day staying slightly above freezing, it can be difficult to forecast how much snow would be associated with the system, but upwards of 20 centimetres is possible. Wind will be another issue associated with the storm.
“We’re also going to be contending with some gusty winds – northeast winds really developing on Wednesday – so look for gusts as high as 50 to 60 kilometres per hour, and with dropping temperatures we’re really expecting deteriorating road conditions,” Lang cautioned. “Reduced visibilities and snow and blowing snow, plus as the temperature drops, the roads will start to ice up, especially when there’s snow falling and the wind blowing that snow across it as well; really, a mess on the way.”
The snow is also expected to be wet, heavy snow with a temperature close to 0°. The northeast winds are also expected to bring in colder, drier air, which when mixed with the low could produce a lot more snow than a Colorado low would usually generate.
While the temperatures are expected to stay just above freezing during the day for the week, it doesn’t mean that the snow will be quickly melting. Temperatures are going to be a lot cooler than seasonal after the system passes through so the snow could be hanging around a lot longer than expected.
“I think most of us were probably puttering around in our yards and gardens already on the weekend, and then we’ll have to just sit and look out the window at the snow,” Lang chuckled.
In terms of the amount of precipitation we could receive, Environment Canada no longer tracks snowfall amounts, as it can often be difficult to determine thanks to winds. Instead, the amount of total precipitation is recorded. This involves measuring out the water equivalent of the snow after it falls. The amount of snow on the ground is also tracked.
In the case of both, a record is very unlikely, as the record for precipitation in April is 50.8 millimetres, and the record for the most snow on the ground is 34 centimetres. The forecasted amounts expected in this system will fall well below that.
The alert issued by Environment Canada Sunday, and updated Monday, stated the heaviest precipitation will fall in an area stretching from Regina all the way through to the Manitoba parklands. As the system develops in the United States, Environment Canada is anticipating they could be issuing snowfall or winter storm watches and warnings.