‘It’s like a bully and you just can’t move it,’ Phillips says of polar vortex

Environment Canada’s senior climatologist would agree with those who have found the recent cold snap unusual.

“You reached the bottom of the thermometer: The coldest day in two years. Minus-38 and the windchill was minus-50 at nine o’clock in the morning. My gosh, that’s brutal,” David Phillips said about Thursday’s temperatures.

It appears there won’t be much relief from the polar vortex for anybody in Canada.

“Today, it could be that every capital city in Canada is going to be below the freezing mark which, in a huge country like Canada, you don’t often see that,” Phillips said Friday during the Greg Morgan Morning Show.

“This one is a polar vortex, Siberian Express, La Nina. Bring it all together and it’s filling every nook and cranny.”

Phillips counted 10 days where the temperature dropped below -30 C and nine days where the daytime high failed to break -20 C.

“That’s long, even for southern Saskatchewan,” he said. “February is the shortest month but it really feels like the longest month because of this extreme, enduring kind of cold.”

Phillips said Friday’s daytime high normally would be -7 C. Instead, the forecast calls for -26 C.

“It’s like a bully and you just can’t move it,” he said.

Moderate relief is in sight, with Monday’s daytime high in Regina forecast to be -17 C. By Thursday, the temperature could hit -4 C.

“Well, we can say at least it’s a little warmer than you’d expect for that time of the year,” Phillips said.

An extreme cold warning continues to blanket most of Saskatchewan.