Extreme cold eases in southern Sask., but snow is on the way

The extreme cold snap is ending in southern Saskatchewan, but now it’s time to get the shovels out.

Environment Canada meteorologist James Colangelo said the weather service expects to issue snowfall warnings for much of southern Saskatchewan on Tuesday. The Saskatoon area, where extreme cold warnings were still in effect on Tuesday morning, is not expected to be part of that warning.

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Ten to 20 centimetres of snow is expected to fall by Thursday morning in Regina. Saskatoon should see quite a bit less snow, with five to 10 centimetres expected to fall.

“It is quite a lot for the Regina area. They look like to be in the worst of it. The worst snowfall (will be) from the Shaunavon area northeast to Regina and into western Manitoba,” Colangelo explained.

“Saskatoon will be right on the northern edge of the broader snow area, so it’ll be a lot easier to tackle the shoveling and the snow clearing for them, as opposed to Regina.”

Colangelo said light snow is expected to start moving in on Tuesday, with the heaviest snowfall expected to hit on Wednesday.

“With those temperatures hovering in the -15 C to -20 C mark, the snow is going to fall as this very light and fluffy snow,” he said. “So it’ll be easier to shovel, but it’ll pile up quite a bit.”

Colangelo said the silver lining is that the weather system will not bring the same strong winds that the province saw just this past weekend.

“That light and fluffy snow will be easier to blow around, but we’re only looking at maybe 20 km/h winds as the snow falls,” Colangelo added.

“It will be fairly short-lived winds at that, so we are not expecting blowing snow and reduced viability.”

Colangelo added that the extreme cold warning in Saskatoon should end on Tuesday.

The latest updates on Environment Canada’s weather alerts can be found on the organization’s website.