Winter storm leaves the province

The Land of Living Skies is getting a break from falling snow.

No weather alerts were in effect for Saskatchewan on Friday morning and no significant snowfall is expected in areas of the province that were hammered by a late-season snowstorm.

Brad Vrolijk, a lead forecaster with Environment and Climate Change Canada, confirmed the storm that caught many off guard has moved out of the province.

“The snow is finally beginning to taper off over southern Saskatchewan after some areas received quite a wallop over the last few days,” he said.

“We have flurries over the region (Friday) morning and we’ll probably see them continue into the day, but (there will be) no significant accumulation with the snow.”

He said there shouldn’t be any more snowfall in the province by Friday evening.

When asked if this marks the end of winter weather, Vrolijk said he can’t make any guarantees because it’s still April in the prairies.

“There’s no major snow on the horizon,” he added. “We’re going to see pretty benign conditions over the next week or so.”

As a result of all the snow that fell, he said daytime temperatures will stay low for the next few days.

“There’s a bit of a stubborn arctic ridge over the eastern prairies that’s going to linger for several days into the beginning of next week,” Vrolijk said.

“It does look like some warmer weather will push into southwestern Saskatchewan by the middle of next week, and we’ll just have to see how long it takes to push further east.”

Vrolijk added he doesn’t expect any major snowfalls anytime soon.

“The next system that looks like it may impact the region could be late next week, and it’s looking right now to be primarily a rain event,” he said.

According to the lead forecaster, the weather office will work on getting updated snowfall totals Friday.

“We do know for sure that the hardest-hit area was down in the Weyburn area. They were just hammered by very heavy snow over the past two days,” he said. “We’ve gotten some reports of totals in the (45- to 50-centimetre) range.”

He estimated up to 20 centimetres of snow fell in the Regina area, a total that will be confirmed Friday.

Some highways were still affected by the weather Friday.

Highway 39 from Moose Jaw to Corinne was closed.

As well, the Highway Hotline said travel wasn’t recommended on Highway 2 and Highway 36 south of Moose Jaw, and Highway 6 south of Corinne, and No. 28 south of Trossachs.

More information is available on the Highway Hotline website.