South Saskatchewan to see hot, windy conditions with expected hazy skies

Although it’s not summer yet, it’s starting to feel that way as temperatures hit near 30 C in parts of Saskatchewan.

Some Regina residents are enjoying the outdoors and soaking up the sun in the Queen City.

“It feels really good, especially after that late snow we got,” said William Oblinski, who said 25 C is his ideal temperature.

“It’s really great to be out in the heat in the beach here. Yeah, we’re about to go canoeing with that outdoor pursuits class, so that’s pretty fun.”

Abby Steadman said she missed the warm weather and that it was too long of a winter.

“It feels really good. I’ve missed the warm weather, honestly,” she said. “I hate being cold. Like I shouldn’t live here. I don’t do well in the cold.”

But Environment Canada said southern parts of the province will see a drop in the temperature starting mid-week.

“There is a little bit of a system moving through northern Saskatchewan associated with the cool front,” said Terri Lang, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) meteorologist.

“It’ll move through tonight and tomorrow. We’re not expecting too much in the way of rain at all. And if it does fall, we’ll probably be in the northeast corner of the province.“

Land said there will be a wind shift to the northwest that will happen through central parts of the province starting on Tuesday in southern Saskatchewan in the afternoon. This will have an impact on the air quality.

“We’re going to see a lot of wildfire smoke starting to move into central and southern Saskatchewan,” she said. “So, people are going to see the visibilities drop and we may see a drop in air quality.”

Lang said those conditions will bring a bit of a change, so that should alleviate the humidity a little bit, too.

“Lots of warm, dry air, which is not good for forest fires in terms of trying to keep them down and try and fight them just because the fire behaviour gets quite aggressive when it’s hot and dry,” she said.

With these temperatures, we are certainly running above average for this time of year. Environment Canada said we are not seeing the record-breaking temperatures that the north are seeing just because their records are a little bit lower and ours are a little bit higher.

Lang said it’s a bit of an unusual pattern as the month of May is usually one of the province’s wettest months.

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