Tornado to heat record to snow: Sask. deals with wide array of weather

Saskatchewan’s living skies lived up to their nickname recently, going from the first tornado of the year being recorded to sunny skies that helped break heat records that have stood for 120 years.

Environment Canada’s Terri Lang said a land-spout tornado formed about 10 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon around 12:25 p.m. last Wednesday.

“We didn’t get reports of any damage so we can’t give it a ranking or anything like that,” Lang said. “This is sort of the season of them just because we have these quickly forming thunderstorms and they can spin up so quickly, they can spit up these land spouts.”

She said it’s believed to be one of the first tornadoes to be in recorded in Canada this year.

Meanwhile on Monday, the mercury rose to new highs in Saskatoon. A temperature of 31 C was reached, breaking the old record of 30.6 C set in 1901.

In Regina, the record of 31.7 C was also set in 1901. The Queen City got to 30.4 C on Monday.

“It’s just the way the jet stream is moving right now. We have a big trough that is digging off the coast of British Columbia and that’s amping up the ridge over Saskatchewan,” Lang said.

She said while southern Saskatchewan saw temperatures in the 30s, areas of northern Saskatchewan were getting snow.

She said the weather is expected to change throughout the week, with a system moving in to bring rain, cooler temperatures and even some snow.

“It looks like the southwest will be the hardest hit when it comes to the snow; they’ve got some higher elevations down there,” Lang said. “Flip-flops to winter boots all in one week. It’s Saskatchewan and it is spring.”