Here in southeast Saskatchewan, we can generally expect a snowfall or two nearly every month of the year. Seeing 10-15 centimetres of snowfall in April isn’t a rare occurrence, but the snowfall we did receive over the past week has been anything but the norm.

While the official numbers have varied thanks to the blowing snow, it is estimated the Weyburn area received around 30 centimetres of snow during the blizzard that hit last week, and around another 8-10 centimetres fell on Easter Sunday. In just a few days' time, things went from the start of grass turning green, to a foot or more of snow on the lawn.

The snowfall will have crews from the City of Weyburn working to clear streets. A lot of the initial work was done leading into the long weekend, with a number of streets being plowed to allow at least a path for vehicles to get down. Now, crews will work to move the windrows that ended up forming the medians of the streets for the Easter weekend in the coming days.

Temperatures will also start to warm up. After a few days of daytime highs struggling to get above 0°, temperatures are expected to move back above the freezing mark, steadily, through the week. This will have the effect of slowing the melt, with the overnight lows getting back down below the freezing mark.

A shot of precipitation like this is a boon for producers around the region. For those who still had room in their dugouts, as the snow melts that room could quickly disappear. The moisture levels will be something monitored in the coming days and weeks to see if it will be enough to recharge the soil after a very dry 2021.

The Souris River will also see a fair amount of meltwater flow into it. There are no forecast updates at this time from the Water Security Agency as to how this will have an impact on the river basin, but it can be expected that the water levels will rise somewhat. Whether this will be enough of an increase for possible flooding downstream remains to be seen at this time.

The snowfall had disrupted a number of services throughout the region, for at least the initial days of the storm. Things did start to re-open over the weekend, and for many businesses and services, Monday will see a return to normal operations.

So, when can we expect spring to return to southeast Saskatchewan?

While the temperatures will be warming up in the next few days, they will still be below seasonal for this time of year until early next week. The sunshine for many of those days will also help with melting the snow. The forecast doesn’t have us in the clear just yet, however. Environment Canada is calling for the possibility of a few more flakes to fall Tuesday night.