Environment Canada confirms windy, warm summer, with much the same for fall

September is here and fall is slowly setting in as the odd leaf can be found on the ground and shops are full of pumpkin spice.

But there is no rush to say goodbye to summer just yet.

Environment Canada is predicting a milder-than-normal fall, which means you might not have to pull out the toque just yet.

“There is still a lot of summer left in the air,” senior climatologist David Phillips said. “From September into mid-October, we think conditions are going to be warmer than normal.

“You never end September without having some kind of frost and you can have snow on the pumpkin for sure, but it doesn’t mean the pattern, the flavour, the personality of what the early fall is going to bring, and we think it will be milder than normal.

“We think all that heat that you have absorbed in the lakes and the lands and the rivers is going to be released and keep that cooler air away. We think it will be drier than normal, so the harvest looks like it will be finished in fairly decent weather, a little bit of rain here or there, but not the monsoonal soakers keeping equipment mired in mud.”

That heat over the summer was certainly welcomed by the many people who had who enjoyed a COVID-driven staycation in the province.

Saskatchewan experienced hot days and little rain to ensure everyone could get out and enjoy golf, boating and time in the garden.

And even though there was a heat wave, with days where the temperature broke decades-old records, Phillips said the summer wasn’t as extreme as we might have thought.

“August was clearly the warmest of the months,” he said. “There were about 10 days above 30 degrees and you would normally see five or six of those. There were even a few days above 32 degrees. Precipitation was adequate. You could have done with a little bit more but it’s still about 75 per cent of what you normally get.

“There was some extreme weather, but you didn’t have monsoon rains and the killer tornadoes that Manitoba had and Albertans are still looking for summer to come, so it put Saskatchewan in the Goldilocks situations — not as extreme as you’ve seen in some years, except for the winds, but overall, all the summer months had normal temperatures or above normal to enjoy.”

One thing everyone can agree on about this summer’s weather is the wind never seemed to let up.

And while Environment Canada doesn’t keep records on wind, Phillips did some math and confirmed we all felt like Dorothy Gale at times.

“I looked at the number of days above 60-kilometre-per-hour gusts (and) I counted about 20 days where we got winds above 60 and we had some up to 70 and 80,” he said. “I can’t tell you on average how many days in the summer do you get winds above 60 but I looked at the past five years and they were generally half of what you had this year.

“I know it is a windy province, particularly in the southern part of the province. The only explanation I could give for what we saw on the prairies were really two contrasting weather air masses.

“We saw very warm conditions — Winnipeg had twice the number of hot days, where in Alberta we saw it cooler and wetter. So where it really put Saskatchewan is between the cooler trough situation in Alberta and the kind of ridge, high-pressure area in Manitoba, and that generally means from a synoptic point of view, when you are in between that, you get strong winds because nature generally tries to balance that out.”

Phillips added he wouldn’t ruin the fun and predict what lies ahead for the winter just yet.