Watch above: A warming trend hits the Prairies and with snow beginning to melt, the City of Saskatoon puts its plan together. Meaghan Craig finds out how crews will tackle removal of what’s fallen this winter.
SASKATOON – There was a little ‘spring’ in everyone’s step on Friday. For the first time in a while, Saskatonians didn’t wake up to numbing numbers temperature-wise.
“It’s fantastic, I can’t wait to be out to be outside all summer long,” said one jogger along Spadina Crescent.
The City of Saskatoon is also preparing for this year’s spring melt and says as long as we stick to single digit highs, we should be able to avoid flash melting.
“Those temperatures are manageable, it’s if we get those extremes where it hits the plus 12s and 13s it stays sustained for three and five days at time that’s causes a major shift and that’s when things happen everywhere at once,” said Pat Hyde, director of public works for the city.
While the warmer weather is a welcome relief for residents, officials say residents can do their part in helping out with the upcoming spring melt by tossing snow back on to their property as opposed to city streets.
“The areas that we see, not always but one of the biggest problems we see where the snow pack is worst is because residents do blow it off the sidewalks or off their driveway on to the roadway,” remarked Hyde.
READ MORE: No thanks, just a warning for man clearing snow from Saskatoon street
Overall, city officials say we’re in pretty good shape heading into spring.
“The snow pack like I said isn’t deep, the priority roads are in great shape, we’ve been using the magnesium chloride mix on the roadways, the results have been very, very positive. Circle Drive is, as I said, probably in the best condition it’s been in many years.”
Snow removal on priority streets will continue through the month of March and so far 10,200 tandem truckloads full of snow have been removed.
As far as residential streets go, the average snow pack in neighbourhoods is roughly four inches based on measurements the city did in 30 different locations. The threshold for street grading is six inches so only problematic streets will be worked on.
“We have staff that are out scouting ahead of the graders ensuring that the streets that need attention will be addressed so that we can get through those neighbourhoods as quickly as we can and then progress to the next neighbourhood as time will permit.”
That is unless we get hit with another snow event.
“I’m hoping but I’m also expecting more snow,” said Hyde.
Environment Canada predicts temperatures in the month of March to be colder than average so don’t pack up those winter clothes just yet.
“We’re definitely not out of the woods for winter,” said Environment Canada Meteorologist John Paul Craig.
“Winter can come back at the end of March, winter can come back anywhere throughout April.”
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