Image

Satellite imagery of this morning's temperatures. The warmer areas are indicated by purple colours while cold temperatures are orange.


After a warm December and a very mild start to January, many southwest Saskatchewan residents thought last week's -40 weather was the return to a normal winter.


Instead, Environment Canada Senior Climatologist David Phillips says we are back to temperatures approximately 8 degrees above then norm this week and for the next seven days.


“We're not seeing a lot of northerly air, not a lot of arctic air. It's up there, it's spinning around at the top of the world but because the jet stream, this division line of the warm air to the south and cold air to the north, is much further north, it's almost in the summer position. And it's blowing across the country and keeping that cold air penned up well to the north.”


Phillips says he would be a lot of money that we will see some more winter-like conditions before the end of February and March.


But he notes they predicted a colder than usual winter and have never been so wrong.