Temperatures drop as Saskatchewan braces for days of cold

Environment Canada is advising people in the province to get ready for more cold weather.

The weather agency was forecasting the end of the week would see cold temperatures in the -20 C range,  with wind chills of -30 C or lower .

“There’s a big arctic area of high pressure, and it’s slowly sinking down across the province. It’s already being felt across northern Saskatchewan — there’s already extreme cold warnings out for them,” meteorologist Terri Lang said.

Those cold warnings included the northern Saskatchewan community of Stony Rapids, which was the coldest place in all of Canada Wednesday morning with a temperature of -44 C.

Lang said the next few days would continue to get colder for communities in central and southern parts of the province.

“By the weekend we’re really going to be into the deep freeze.”

Lang cautioned that even light winds or breezes can make for dangerous wind chills.

“Frost bite can occur very rapidly when the wind chills are that high,” she said.

There have been cold days in the province already this winter, but Lang said this week’s weather system represents a more traditional January cold snap.

“It is the time of the year that we do get these longer cold snaps. The arctic air that comes down associated with the polar vortex, it’s very dense and very heavy.”

Temperatures in Saskatoon and Regina were expected to plummet to overnight lows well under -20 C by Friday and Saturday, then come up to daytime highs in the – 10 C range by Sunday and into the early part of next week.