On Wednesday morning, Environment Canada issued its ninth extreme cold warning in February for Saskatoon. This is a La Nina winter.
“All it takes is a little bit of wind when you have temperatures down around -30 to drop the wind chill off to -40 where we start issuing extreme cold warnings,” John Paul Cragg, Environment Canada warning preparedness meteorologist, explained.
Normally, the short month of February has three days when extreme cold warnings are issued.
For Taylor Brittain, it’s been a long winter.
“I’m just over it,” Brittain said.
“My car is frozen and it’s just dead.”
Anthony Anderson with Affordable Towing boosted Brittain’s vehicle but said boosts are less common this time of year as most vehicles with weak batteries were weeded out earlier in the winter.
“I get a lot of people locking their keys in their car after they go and fire them up to warm them up,” Anderson said.
Tobogganing hills, and the Meewasin skating rinks were all but abandoned Wednesday.
On the final day of Crokicurl on Broadway, all groups but one had cancelled their scheduled game.
According to Environment Canada, Saskatoon normally has 13.4 days over the winter where temperatures feel -40 or lower. This winter, there have been 17 days with wind chill temperatures of -40.
The coldest temperature this winter was -36.5 on Dec 30, 2017. While that is bitterly cold, the coldest temperature ever in Saskatoon was -50 on Feb. 1, 1893.
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