A weather system that originated in Hawaii has made its way north to most of the southern two-thirds of the province, with storm warnings, blizzard warnings and wind warnings, depending on where you are.
As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, the Highway Hotline was reporting travel not recommended on all highways around Saskatoon. The same goes for North Battleford and Kindersley, and all of the roads leading out of Regina north of that city, including the #11 all the way to Saskatoon.
At 5 p.m., the Regina Police Service reported on Twitter that officers were responding to weather-related traffic issues throughout the city. Traffic lights are out at several intersections including Victoria and Prince of Wales where this light standard is down.
The City of Saskatoon held a news conference Tuesday morning with City officials and Terri Lang, a meteorologist with Environment Canada. Lang says Saskatoon is expected to receive 10 to 15 centimetres of snow when all is said and done with winds in the 70 to 80 km/hr range with the potential of gusts up to 90 kilometres an hour.
“The other issue that we see right now too is that temperatures are above freezing right now. It actually is Hawaiian air, this system did come from Hawaii, it’s the same system that wreaked havoc on British Columbia.”
The weather statement issued from Environment Canada has been upgraded to a Winter Storm Warning. As for the Regina area, less snow is expected down there, although there will be stronger winds.
City of Saskatoon officials say they’re ready to have the city’s priority streets cleared within 72 hours after the snowfall.
Goran Saric, Director of Roadways, Fleet and Support says the strong winds combined with the snowfall will make it challenging for motorists, that’s why those with the City of Saskatoon are not recommending travel unless it’s necessary.
“So throughout the day today (tues), we expect to see lots of snow and strong winds which will create challenging driving conditions today and into the evening and we expect reduced visibility on Saskatoon streets.”
City crews will continue to plow Circle Drive as the snow continues to fall and to keep lanes cleared on other high priority streets such as 22nd Street, Idylwyld Drive and 8th Street. Saric says crews were out salting Circle Drive, bridge decks and on and off ramps last night (mon) in preparation for the 10 to 15 centimetres of snow that is expected to fall over the next number of hours.
Saskatoon Light and Power say they’re not expecting widespread outages, although localized outages may occur. Trevor Bell, Director of Light and Power says one of the main causes of outages during a winter snow is the accumulation of warm snow on trees, which causes the tree to bend, then coming into contact with power lines which results in an outage. Bell says they do tree trimming in the summer to help prevent this from happening.
Lang says this snow event won’t be as strong as the one experienced a little over a year ago in November of 2020 which shut down a good portion of the city and saw health care workers get chauffeured to and from hospitals on ski-doos and the 2020 Civic Election postponed.
