Sask. experiences snowy conditions, frigid temperatures to return

A car is stuck in snowdrifts on the west side of Regina. (Gareth Dillistone / CTV News)

Vehicles in the ditch have become a common sight around Regina this week, thanks to some snowy and windy conditions rolling through the province.

According to Danielle Desjardins, warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), this snow is particularly light and fluffy which makes is significantly easier to be picked up, even at lighter wind speeds.

“For this last system, the fact that we had a lot of recent snowfall, it was pretty light. That definitely helped with the reduction in visibility and for the poor travel conditions on the highways,” she explained.

Blowing snow advisories were issued for many areas in southern Saskatchewan, as extremely poor visibility made road conditions poor.

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These advisories don’t necessarily require falling snow. According to ECCC, there are three pieces of criteria necessary for a blowing snow advisory.

• visibility of 800 meters or less
• wind speeds of 30 km/h or more
• these factors lasting for a minimum of three hours

“We have seen some events so far this year where we saw even, winds 70 gusts to 70 km/h an hour or 90 km/h an hour. And it seems like that new snowfall combined, with those winds, made travel conditions a lot worse in this situation,” Desjardins said.

The City of Regina addressed media on Thursday afternoon to share that crews are currently working to clear priority roads within the city. Director of roadways and transportation for the City of Regina, Chris Warren shared that they expect to have this work completed on Saturday by 7 a.m. After they’ve completed that work, they plan to focus on residential areas.

“As we received 15 cm of snow, we are expecting to start a residential plow early next week. The schedule will be posted on regina.ca and residents are encouraged to download the Sweep and Plow app to receive alerts to move their vehicles when the snow plow is in their neighborhood,” Warren said.

“Compared to last year, this is definitely a lot more snow than we have seen. Last year, it was quite a bit warmer than average for the entire winter. And many regions across the southern half of the province even saw brown Christmases last year,” Desjardins said.

While the snowy conditions are expected to subside within the next few days, Saskatchewanians are in for another snap of particularly frigid temperatures in the next several days.

“We are in store for a big Arctic outbreak of cold air for the foreseeable future, at least through about Valentine’s Day...I do expect that some portions of the province will be under extreme cold warnings, at least for the start of next week,” Desjardins said.