Lots of sunshine expected throughout Saskatchewan

The calendar might show the end of summer inching closer but the weather has different plans.

Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips says farmers might see a lot of sunshine and heat throughout the week.

“In terms of harvest, I mean, you couldn’t order better weather,” Phillips said on the Greg Morgan Morning Show on Tuesday. “Warm temperatures, lots of sunshine — the combines will be going in the morning, noon and night.

“It looks absolutely incredible.”

Temperatures hovering around the low to mid-30 C mark are expected throughout much of the province until at least Monday or later.

“Everything looks pretty good. You’re locked into this ridge of high pressure with southern air from the States,” Phillips said. “It’s looking like it is absolutely going to hold on.”

As of Aug. 22, harvest progress was sitting at 16 per cent, on par with the five-year average.

Progress has been most advanced in the southwest region where farmers had 45 per cent of their crop in the bin, followed by producers in the west-central who had 19 per cent of their crop harvested.

Environment Canada provides updated tornado numbers

Phillips says there has been no shortage of tornadoes this summer.

“If you look at all the provinces, there are more tornadoes on average in Saskatchewan than any other province,” he said. “It’s very close with Ontario, but more in Saskatchewan.

“There have been 25 twisters so far.”

There were eight confirmed twisters in 2021, nine in 2020 and seven in 2019.

The 25 seen in Saskatchewan this summer are above the annual average of 17.

Despite there being more twisters, Phillips said only a few have been extremely severe.

“Four of the 25 had winds of 190 kilometres per hour, so those are some pretty strong winds,” he said. “They took down trees (and) did some crop damage. I don’t think there were any serious injuries.

“Fortunately, there are a lot of wide-open spaces in Saskatchewan.”

More moisture than in previous summers over the last few years and stretches of intense summer heat had a big part to play, according to the meteorologist.

“Certainly, this year has been very active because the weather has been conducive to it,” he said.