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By Nick Nielsen

Including Prince Albert, North Battleford

Volunteers reporting snowfall amounts from around the province

Nov 25, 2024 | 12:38 PM

No matter where you go in Saskatchewan, winter has arrived with the snow storm that passed through the province over the weekend. While many places have reported their snowfall numbers, Environment Canada is still looking for numbers from some areas.

While Environment Canada’s weather stations around the province measure other aspects of weather like precipitation amounts and wind speed, they rely on volunteers to measure the amount of snow received and report it. Scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada Christy Climenhaga shares the best way for people to share their reports.

“The easiest way to get your snowfall totals to us so that we can include them in our list is to e-mail them to us at storm@ec.gc.ca, or you can you can just put them on social media of some kind, and either tag us or use the hashtag #SKStorm.”

If you do plan to start sending in measurements from the snowfall amounts in your area, there is a certain way Environment Canada wants you to measure. Because so many things can change the measurement of snowfall such as blowing, drifting, and melting snow, it’s important to have a wide area to take your measurements.

“If you’re making measurements of your own, you want to be away from any obstacles like buildings or trees, areas that you can see those snow drifts starting to form, and then you place a ruler into the snow and kind of bend down, get down to eye level and and take a bunch of readings in an area just to get that average measurement.”

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As for the actual numbers, the Battlefords area is reporting the most snow out of the weekend’s storm with 24 cm or 9 1/2 inches.

In Prince Albert, snowfall amounts were less with reports ranging between 10 to 15 cm or 4 to 6 inches.

Environment Canada did not receive reports from the Melfort, Nipawin, or La Ronge areas.

“Our reporting network is is pretty sparse for snow. Most of the reports we get are from volunteers and so unofficial totals, but we did see quite a bit of snowfall across the region.”

With the snowfall now comes a blast of cold weather. According to Climenhaga, now that the snow has run its course through Saskatchewan for the time being, it’s time to get the extension cords out and get your vehicles plugged in overnight.

“It looks like we’re taking a break from the snowy weather over the next little while and descending into the cold weather. So today it’s already a a chillier day when compared to normal. Our normal for this time of year for the Prince Albert area, around a -7 C or so degree high, -16 C low and we’re kind of in those mid-to-high minus teens today. Tomorrow you could see those highs struggling to get out of the minus 20s, and then a little bit of a reprieve back to the minus teens before we get into another shot of of quite cold weather into the end of the week and start of the weekend.”