Weather extremes gripped Sask. in 2023. Do you remember these events?
Extreme cold, few tornadoes and a snowless fall top the list
Saskatchewan certainly saw its share of extreme and unusual weather events in 2023.
Here's a look back at the year that was and a look ahead at what we might see in 2024.
Walking around in a fog
The year started with our atmosphere basically stalling out.
No movement from the jet stream and no major weather systems moving through meant fog developed through much of the province.
By Jan. 19, Kindersley had reported 122 hours with less than a kilometre of visibility. Only 31 hours are recorded there in an average January.
The fog also created air quality issues in Alberta and resulted in some pretty photos, as rime ice covered trees.
La Niña's last gasp
Spring started with a blast of winter.
In March, temperatures across the province were between 5.5 C and 8 C, below average.
What was perhaps our biggest snowstorm of the year came in the middle of April.
A powerful low pressure system brought a whopping 60 cm to Weyburn and around 20 cm to Regina.
The late-season cold and snow is not unusual during a La Niña weather pattern like Saskatchewan saw this past winter and the two winters before it.
The pattern forms when temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator drop below average. The colder air this creates then moves northward into Canada.
From freezing to fires
The cold and snow ended abruptly in May.
Stony Rapids was the first community to hit 30 C mark on May 4. Many other northern communities saw temperatures well above normal.
Early season forest fires caused evacuations in numerous communities, including La Loche twice in the month of May.
It would become a record-breaking forest fire year in the province, with 1.9 million hectares of land burned — surpassing the old record of 1.8 million in 2015.
Records were also broken for hours of smoke recorded in communities across the province — the highest of which was 900 hours in La Ronge.
Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., said fires in the boreal forest can burn through winter, especially when they smoulder under peat moss.
He said predicting next year's fire season is challenging, but ongoing drought on the Prairies and a growing El Niño pattern — an opposite pattern to La Niña that's been responsible for warmer and drier weather this fall and winter — are "loading the dice."
"This does remind me of 1997," said Flannigan. "And in Alberta in 1997 what followed was a very active fire season in 1998.
"There's a potential for a very active spring."
Drought leads to 'disaster' status
More than 50 rural municipalities in Saskatchewan declared agricultural disasters by August because of drought and grasshoppers.
Despite the dire situation Bev Pirio, a vice president with the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, said outside of hard-hit areas, it was an average year for farmers.
"Obviously the southwestern portion of the province, they were extremely dry, extremely short of grass and feed for cattle," said Pirio.
"And then we had pockets up by Yorkton that had a hard time getting their crop off because they got a rain shower every day."
Pirio, who farms near Radville, said her own crop turned out better than she expected, while her neighbours struggled with drought.
"If we don't get moisture before February, we will probably be OK, as long as we get the moisture following that," she said.
She added that cattle farmers and those who planted winter cereal crops need moisture right away.
Shipping crops, she said, should be easier this year thanks to little snow blocking rail lines. The warmer weather is also less harsh on farm equipment and livestock.
Quiet summer storm season
Moisture given off by growing crops and heat from the sun are two key ingredients for thunderstorms.
But since many crops were stunted by drought and smoke frequently obscured the sun, storms were scarce this summer.
Many believed we were in for another busy storm season when Canada's first tornado of 2023 touched down near Regina on May 27, damaging a farm just south of town.
But that was the only tornado that would hit the province — a new yearly record low number.
Data from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) also showed Saskatchewan saw its lowest number of July lightning strikes on record.
From La Niña to El Niño
After the warmest May to September period in at least 75 years, this autumn and the start of winter have been marked by an unusually long period of warm weather in Saskatchewan.
It was the warmest December on record for six locations — including Regina, Saskatoon and La Ronge — and the second warmest for five others, with monthly temperatures more than 9 C above average in some places.
Regina and Saskatoon didn't drop below -20 C at night in November or December — something that usually happens about 15 times in those two months in both cities.
Ninety-four high temperature records were broken in December, with Leader breaking its all-time monthly temperature record of 13.5 C twice — hitting 14.8 C on Dec. 5 and 13.8 C on Dec. 22.
The warm weather is largely attributed to the strong El Niño pattern that has brought similar conditions to much of Canada so far this winter.
The pattern has also kept the province dry. Almost everyone saw below average moisture, with Meadow Lake, La Ronge and Key Lake having their driest Decembers on record.
Saskatoon, which saw its precipitation fall only as rain in December, has yet to receive any snow.
Regina saw an impressive 27-day stretch in the same month with no precipitation reported at its airport — the longest consecutive stretch on record.
In its latest update, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a U.S.-based government science and climate agency, says El Niño is likely to continue through winter, with a 54 per cent chance of a "historically strong" event.
ECCC's outlook shows a 50 to 60 per cent chance temperatures will remain above normal through February in Saskatchewan.
The NOAA says there's a 60 per cent chance El Niño will transition to a neutral phase between April and June.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
