Extreme cold settles in for Saskatoon, Regina avoids big snowstorm

If you live in Regina and southern Saskatchewan, you’re probably waking up wondering where all the snow is.

The Queen City ended up with quite a bit less snow than the 10 to 20 centimetres that was initially predicted by weather forecasters.

While official snow totals aren’t known yet, Environment Canada meteorologist Brad Vrolijk says the system that was heading for Regina didn’t track how they thought it would.

“The snow did develop as we expected last night in Montana and did shift northeastward into southeastern Saskatchewan throughout the night,” he said. “In Regina, though, it ended up having just a bit of a sharper northwestern edge than originally forecasted, so it just grazed by Regina, but to the south and the east it did snow right throughout the night.”

Communities that managed to miss the snow aren’t avoiding the cold snap that will make its way throughout the province on Friday.

Extreme cold warnings are in effect for west-central Saskatchewan, including Saskatoon and the far north with wind chill values near -40 C.

“(Saskatoon) had temperatures drop into the -30s  there and wind chills into the -40s,” Vrolijk said. “It won’t get quite as cold this coming night in Regina or Saskatoon as we saw (Thursday night), but it will still be below seasonal for this time of year.”

Temperatures are expected to bounce back to more seasonal numbers for the weekend, but the mercury is set to plunge again on Monday.

The cold temperatures caused the cancellation of school buses in the Prairie Spirit School Division. Only Blaine Lake, Duck Lake and Leask routes remained on schedule.