City crews clear one of the windrows left around the city at the end of February. (Image Credit: Facebook/City of Prince Albert)

By Nick Nielsen

More to come

Snow not ready to leave Prince Albert

Mar 20, 2026 | 3:00 PM

From Prince Albert, if you take the short drive south to Saskatoon, you’ll notice a big difference in the amount of snow left. 

Prince Albert still has tons of snow on the ground and in some of the streets, while Saskatoon is down to their final layer. If you drive west into Alberta or further south to southern Saskatchewan, the snow is gone and spring has already arrived weeks ago.

Justin Shelley is a Meteorologist with Environment Canada, and says there are multiple reasons for the snow sticking around so long here in Prince Albert. The biggest one is that temperatures in Prince Albert have been abnormally cooler than what Saskatoon has seen since February. 

“We have had temperatures about two and a half degrees cooler in the Prince Albert area since the start of February than in Saskatoon. That’s not too atypical, but it’s usually closer to half-a-degree or a degree-and-a-half difference, but you can have these compounding effects where you have more snowfall and colder temperatures. Once the snowpack starts to melt, that allows the surface temperature to warm up even more. Warmer temperatures lead to less snowpack, less snowpack leads to warmer temperatures, and that cycle sort of positive feedback loop of sorts.” 

While cooler temperatures are partially to blame, Shelley also mentioned that Prince Albert has just straight up had more snow in that same time frame. 

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“When we take a look at the last six weeks or so, Prince Albert region for the month of February saw about 2.5 times as much precipitation than Saskatoon, including that mid-February event where Saskatoon only saw about 20 centimetres, while areas just to the east and north, including Prince Albert, saw closer to 35 centimetres.” 

While the temperatures now have the snow melting in Prince Albert, don’t expect to be snow free any time soon. With the warmer temperatures comes the potential for some precipitation, and Shelley expects to see Prince Albert get hit with some more snow despite the official start to spring already having come and gone. 

“We are going to see those couple of systems come through the area, including Prince Albert’s, first one being tomorrow (Saturday) night and into Saturday morning. That is going to produce some additional snowfall to the area to add to that already high snowpack, so on the order of five to ten centimeters for the region. Then through the middle of next week, we’re tracking another potential clipper system. This one has a bit more uncertainty in terms of the exact areas but expecting more snowfall in the area between Tuesday night and Wednesday night of next week as well.” 

While warm temperatures are on the way, the daily high temperature is not set to reach above zero again after Friday. 

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nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia.com