LISTEN: Sask. Braces for warmer days after wild weather ride

Saskatchewan’s weather has been like riding a rollercoaster lately, but the coldest part might be waving goodbye to the prairies.

After seeing a high of four degrees last week, then dropping into a three-day cold snap over the January 18th, weekend, David Phillips Environment Canada’s senior climatologist said we experienced Saskatchewan’s version of a chinook.

He said it is warming up now, with temperatures expected to be in the high single digits for the last bit of the month.

Listed to Environment Canada Senior Climatologist David Phillips was on the Greg Morgan Morning Show:

However, Phillips said to expect some snow during the night of Tuesday, Jan. 21 through Wednesday as a little Alberta Clipper rolls through.

980 CJME’s Greg Morgan: It’s starting to feel a little better by the afternoon, it’s going to be minus three degrees. For a brief period, our wind chill was minus 50 yesterday. Today, a 24-degree temperature swings for us from minus 27 to minus three.

PHILLIPS: What a roller coaster. Less than a week ago, you had a January thaw, temperatures were up to four degrees, the warmest in December or January. Then suddenly, on the weekend, we got absolutely inhospitable temperatures.

I don’t have to tell you how fast flesh freezes, exposed flesh. It was brutal and then code to go from a high yesterday of minus 23 to a high today of mine is three. My gosh, this is Saskatchewan’s version of a Chinook.

What’s been the greatest influence on our roller coaster of this cold?

PHILLIPS: It is what we call a pattern change. What we’re seeing is essentially a change in the direction the weather is coming from.

We had a large high-pressure area that was pumping this Siberian, Alaskan, and Canadian air right down into the south and also into the United States, it has begun to move further east and south.

Not only is it warming up in Saskatchewan, but it’s freezing in the east, which is a double hit.

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Clearly what we’re seeing now is more southerly air, more Pacific Air and that’s why we see these temperatures now. We’re going to see a little bit of an Alberta Clipper come through tonight into tomorrow. It’s going to bring a little bit of snow, maybe two or three centimetres, so nothing.

The winds are going to still be a little strong, that would be a little blowing, a drifting it means, watching that, but then after that, we see back to those single-digit highs.

When will Mother Nature hug us next with a warm embrace for an extended period that lasts longer than a day or two? Are your models indicating anything for February?

PHILLIPS: Certainly, you’re not going to get this yo-yo kind of weather you’ve had. Essentially, when this Alberta Clipper moves through, we get more into the southerly Pacific Air. I see all-week temperatures that are clearly warmer than normal, four, five, or six degrees warmer than you normally expect.

Highs in Regina should be about minus 11, not minus five or minus six, which is what’s coming up. We don’t see this ending right through to the end of January.

Now in February, the best I can do is present you with normal weather.

La Niña is on us now. What we are seeing in February is something less cold than January has been.

Temperatures look like they’re going to be more seasonable. Typically February is about three or four degrees warmer than January.

January is the coldest month it’s the dead of winter, so this cold period you had on the weekend was three days, which is pretty short.

Three days in Saskatchewan, it is over. That may be the coldest moment of the entire winter. You can’t say that polar vortex will come back, but my gosh, it’s usually not as stingy as it was.