(File Photo/paNOW Staff)

By Mat Barrett

Heat Records

Daily heat records broken across northeast on Monday and Tuesday

Aug 19, 2020 | 12:00 PM

The first half of August has treated residents of Saskatchewan to plenty of heat and not a lot of rain.

The hottest of this stretch has been the past couple of days like Monday, Aug. 17, and Tuesday, Aug. 18 has seen a number of daily heat records broken in the northeast region and across Saskatchewan.

Terri Lang, meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said a dome of high pressure continues to sit over the province and most of western Canada and the western United States. Lang expects it to die off in the next couple of days.

“It’ll cool down to maybe closer to the high 20’s,” she said. “As opposed to the low to mid 30’s.”

On Monday, a number of daily heat records were broken in the northeast region. The hottest of the bunch was Last Mountain Lake that saw a high of 34.7 degrees Celsius, breaking the 31.7 C record set in 1979.

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Melfort set a new record of 32.4 C, and Nipawin set a new record of 30.2 C, breaking the record set in 2013 when it was 27.9C. Watrous was sitting at 33.9 C for the high on Monday, breaking the 32.8 C record set in 1958.

Waskesiu’s high on Monday was 31.2 C, breaking the record set in 1984 where it was 28.5 C on that day. Wynyard also broke a record from the 1980’s as their high of 32.3 C smashed the old record of 30.8 C in 1981.

Tuesday saw another slough of records broken as Last Mountain Lake topped their record of 34.0 C set in 1984 with a high of 36.9 C which was one of the hottest spots in the province on Tuesday.

Melfort was at 32.8 C, breaking the record of 31.7 C set in 2003. Nipawin also broke a fairly new record from 2008 when it was 29.3 C after their high on Tuesday was 32.3 C. Watrous was another major hot spot on Tuesday as their high was 35.0 C, breaking the record of 34.0 C set in 1984. Wynyard just squeaked by their 1984 record of 33.4 C with a high of 33.8 C on Tuesday.

Lang said there could be some more records broken on Wednesday before things “cool off.” She also mentioned the risk of thunderstorms are there.

“We’ll probably see over the next couple days that shower, thundershower activity start to increase as this ridge of high pressure breaks down,” Lang told northeastNOW.

She said there hasn’t been much rain because it can be too hot for thunderstorms, and that the air is too stable and dry to create much activity.

A heat warning remains in effect for most of the province, mainly anywhere south of places like Big River and Meadow Lake.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6