Heat warnings to stay in effect until Friday

The record-setting heat wave in Saskatchewan will last only a couple more days.

Then the temperatures will plummet … to around 30 C.

“It looks like today and tomorrow are really the last two days of the really high heat,” Environment Canada meteorologist Dave Carlsen said Wednesday.

“Once we get to Friday and into the weekend, it’s going to cool down a little bit — but ‘cool down,’ you can use quotes around that because the temperatures are going to be somewhere between 25 and 30 degrees after Friday for the next week or so.

“It looks like it’s still going to be very warm, just not really hot.”

Carlsen said 13 Saskatchewan communities set records Tuesday for high temperatures.

Regina got to 35.9 C (or 96.6 F) to break the previous high for Aug. 18. That mark of 35.0 C was set in 1919.

Saskatoon reached 35.3 C (95.5 F), surpassing the record high for the day of 34.8 C set in 1991.

The province’s hot spot Tuesday was Last Mountain Lake, where the mercury reached 36.9 C (98.4 F).

“There’s a fairly strong ridge of high pressure in the upper atmosphere and that’s pushing all of the fronts and the jet streams way north,” Carlsen said. “Once you’re south of that jet stream, a whole bunch of hot air comes in from the U.S. It comes in from Colorado, Wyoming and even as far south as New Mexico.

“That air just gets really warm and, with the August sun, it gets to be a really hot day.”

Heat warnings remained in effect across central and southern Saskatchewan on Wednesday, with 22 of the province’s 32 regions listed by Environment Canada under the advisory.

Carlsen advised people to watch for signs of heat exhaustion or simple overheating.

“We recommend that people stay inside as much as possible,” he said. “If you’ve got air conditioning, stay in that or stay in the shade. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate and make sure that you stay safe.”