We're due for a warmup, but not without some cold weather holding over from February. (Rob Mahon/paNOW Staff)

By Rob Mahon

More -30

March to start on colder note in Prince Albert

Mar 1, 2022 | 12:00 PM

A frigid February is safely behind us, but the cold air hasn’t abandoned Saskatchewan just because the calendar turned. More wintery weather is in store for the early days of the new month.

Though it will be warmer this week on average than last week, there is one more burst of extreme cold weather in the forecast just to remind us winter isn’t over yet. In fact, we may get another extreme cold warning for Prince Albert.

“Today’s temperature, for instance, will still be below normal,” said Natalie Hasell, warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada. “Overall, however, it’s still going to be warmer than it has been except for Wednesday night into Thursday morning where we have a ridge of high pressure defined by arctic air up in the northern part of the province.”

Temperatures on Wednesday night are expected to fall to -32 C. Previous ridges of high pressure have led to days on end like that, but this one appears to be quicker-hitting.

“Instead of several days, that is the only day like that for this week,” Hasell said. “Temperatures moderate after that and get closer to seasonal by the time we get to the weekend and early next week.”

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February was a much colder month than usual in Saskatchewan. On average, Prince Albert sees just over four days in February where the temperature reaches -30 C or below. This year, we had 11 such days, more than the average for any month of the year.

“If we look at these synoptic systems, where the highs and lows were, we see that we had a lot of variability in the month, a lot of these lows and highs following each other,” said Hasell. “Each low, we had a bit of snow or a lot of snow, often winds or blizzard conditions.”

Of course, February hasn’t been unique in that regard. January and December saw more days below -30 C than usual as well. La Nina, which affects the temperature of water in the equatorial Pacific region, has led to all kinds of bizarre weather.

“It acts like a forcing mechanism, placing the jetstream in more or less the same place repeatedly,” said Hasell. “This Jetstream can be thought of as the track a low will follow. If you have the Jetstream in more or less the same place, you will have lows that travel in more or less the same place.”

So, are we going to get back to normal in March? Early indications are we’ll get closer to normal, and spend far less time in the -30 C range, but we’re not quite done with cold temperatures yet.

“Generally speaking, for most of the prairies we do have a suggestion that colder than normal will continue for the month,” Hasell said. “That’s averaged over the month, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be colder than normal every day.”

Hasell added the three-month forecast showed it was likely April and May would be colder than average as well.

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rob.mahon@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @RobMahonPxP