Less severe weather hit Saskatchewan in 2023 says expert

As 2023 wraps up, there’s no better time than the present to go over the weather we saw over the last 365 days.

It’s no secret there was less severe weather than normal.

In the summer, Saskatchewan saw only one confirmed tornado.

Environment and Climate Change Canada senior climatologist David Phillips said he’s seen Saskatchewan lead the country in tornadoes before.

“They’re not necessarily big guys; they may be small tornadoes,” said Phillips. “But they can cause a lot of damage and be threatening.”

Normally Saskatchewan competes with Ontario in tornado numbers, but this year that wasn’t the case.

“Ontario had 39 (tornadoes), and I think Saskatchewan had one,” said Phillips. “It was a weak one at that.”

That tornado happened at the end of May.

The big summer weather story was the wildfires across Western Canada that affected more than just Canada.

Saskatchewan saw about 18 per cent more fires this summer and the area burned was four times the average.

Smoke and haze also took over the province during the summer months and into September.

“We saw nearly a thousand hours (of smoke and haze) in the northern part of the province,” said Phillips. “Regina and Saskatoon, we had over 200 hours of smoke and haze.”

The other big thing that stood out to Phillips was the quick switch from winter to summer.

“I often describe spring as being two days long,” said Phillips. “March and April were exceedingly cold, ground (was) frozen, farmers couldn’t get onto their fields and then May and June came and were some of the warmest two months on record, so you went from slush to sweat.”

It’s also never too early to start to look ahead at what 2024 can present us in regards to weather.

While Phillips said it’s hard to predict what the weather could look like next year, he did say the warmer temperatures should continue as El Niño winters tend to be two-year deals.

“They often say that the second year shows more of the warmth than the first year,” said Phillips. “I don’t know if that is the case. That’s just saying if you were betting, you probably say, ‘Well ok, my sense is that it is going to continue this way.’ ”

Phillips said the hope for 2024 is that it won’t be as dry as it has been for the last couple of years.