A weekend of extreme weather brought rain, sleet, snow, and intense winds to many parts of Saskatchewan Friday and Saturday. Depending on where you were in the province, you may have experienced all of them at certain times of the day. “We had a really significant Colorado low that sort of tracked northeastward across the province as much as anything else,” Environment Canada meteorologist Brian Proctor said. “It really produced very significant winds over many, many communities.” This Colorado low moved from the southwest part of the province Friday evening across to northern Manitoba by Saturday evening. Proctor says 10 communities in Saskatchewan experienced winds of at least 90 kilometres per hour. Twin Lakes had the highest wind speeds on Saturday at 103 km/h. Saskatoon’s strongest wind gusts were measured at 89 km/h, while Regina registered speeds of 80 km/h. “Really a wide swath of fairly significant winds associated with this,” Proctor said. “And somewhat unusually, some of our usual suspects in the southwest didn’t see the peak of those winds. It was really more central Saskatchewan.” Various social media posts showed downed trees in various neighbourhoods, items flying out of the back of pickup trucks and playsets or trampolines toppled over in backyards. The intense winds also made plenty of work for SaskPower crews. Workers were dispatched throughout central and northcentral Saskatchewan day and night Saturday to repair power lines and restore power. SaskPower says at one point, roughly 4,000 homes were without power during the most significant outages. Foam Lake, St. Benedict, Emma Lake, Madge Lake, Martensville, and Wollaston Lake were the noted areas SaskPower included in a release to CTV News. Most customers had power restored on Saturday, but some were without power overnight into Sunday, the release said. Proctor also said many areas in northern Saskatchewan had plenty of snowfall. However, it was difficult to determine the exact amounts because of the wind. “People talking about 120-centimetre drifts in places in the Wollaston Lake area, but other areas associated very close by with nothing at all, so the snow had been scrubbed barren,” he said. Proctor said some areas may experience more precipitation on Monday and Tuesday, but the return of mild temperatures throughout the week shouldn’t impact plans for Halloween on Saturday.
