By CKOM News Staff

Rude Awakening: Prince Albert wakes up to spring snow

Apr 24, 2017 | 10:32 AM

April showers bring May flowers, but what about April snow?

Much of Saskatchewan, including Prince Albert, Regina and Moose Jaw, woke up to a blanket of it Monday morning.

It began falling at roughly 9 p.m. Sunday, accumulating to two cm of snow in Prince Albert and three to five cm in Regina. Moose Jaw received almost eight cm.

Environment Canada meteorologist Justin Shaer said people shouldn’t really be surprised by this spring weather.

“It may not happen every year but it’s not out of the ordinary by any stretch,” he said.

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Shaer noted that other parts of Canada had it worse Monday morning.

“It’s some snow, but there are areas getting hit worse further east into Manitoba,” he said.

Parts of southern Manitoba were under a snowfall warning Monday morning with Environment Canada predicting almost 20 cm.

“The five to 10 cm is okay, I guess, for this time of year in comparison,” Shaer said. “It’s a little bit of a rude awakening after relatively nice, early spring weather.”

While nothing is for certain, he said he couldn’t see any more considerable snowfall on the long-range forecast.

“It should be the last good, decent measurable snowfall, at least into early May,” Shaer added. “It’s hard to say past that. If some system decides to dive south from the Arctic and bring down some cold air with it, we could obviously get a blast of snow.”

BELOW SEASONAL TEMPERATURES

Saskatoon managed to escape with just a light dusting of snow. Shaer said the Bridge City could expect cooler-than-average temperatures throughout the week.

He said he sympathized with the many people who had settled in to the spring conditions in recent weeks.

“It’s just a bummer, more than anything. But not unheard of,” he said.

While Shaer expected the snow to taper off Monday morning, he said temperatures wouldn’t warm up until closer to next week.

“It’s not until later this week that we start seeing temperatures kind of approach what we’d say [are] seasonal averages for this time of year,” he said.

Environment Canada records the average daytime high for Prince Albert this time of year at 12 C. The city will see highs in the low double digits, but not until the weekend.

And as to when temperatures will stop dipping below zero in the evenings?

“I wouldn’t be planting tomatoes anytime soon,” Shaer said.

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