A man puts his snowblower to work in front of his business in Prince Albert Monday morning. (Dawson Thompson/paNOW Staff)

By Trevor Redden

Colorado Low

Environment Canada estimates around 30 cm of snowfall

Nov 9, 2020 | 12:39 PM

Environment Canada is gathering data to assess just how much snowfall accumulated during the weekend storm.

Meteorologist Terri Lang reported Monday morning there were reports of 27 cm of snowfall in Prince Albert, and 33 cm at Codette. The organization is relying on volunteered information, as the nature of the storm made it difficult for systems to gather data.

“When there’s so much wind blowing, our automatic weather stations don’t catch the snow, and the sensors that try to measure the snow depth have trouble with the drifts that move and change with the snow,” Lang explained.

The weather system formed a band stretching across the province from the southwest corner up toward Melfort and beyond. The heaviest reports of snowfall came near Maple Creek and Cypress Hills, with upwards of 40 cm reported. Areas outside of the band saw considerably less accumulation, as illustrated by just 11 cm reported in Emma Lake, less than 50 km from Prince Albert.

This much snowfall in early November is unusual for the region, coming from a weather system that typically doesn’t reach this part of the continent. The snow was brought in by something called a “Colorado low.”

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“Usually it can clip parts of south eastern Saskatchewan, or mostly go into Manitoba. What’s unique about [the Colorado low] is it’s able to tap into the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and mix with the really cold air, and that’s what gives us the high snowfall that we saw,” Lang said, explaining that an abnormally vertical jetstream brought the low pressure system straight north rather than northeast as usual.

Residents may be shovelling with trepidation on Monday as they see more snowfall in the forecast as soon as Tuesday evening, but what is to come is expected to be insignificant by comparison.

“It looks like it’s going to be only in the two to five centimetre range from late Tuesday into Wednesday, nothing like what we’ve seen,” Lang assured.

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trevor.redden@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @Trevor_Redden