An Alberta clipper was the main cause of the power outage affecting the southwest region of Saskatchewan throughout the week.
A weather front rolled into the area on Wednesday that was accompanied with winds that were measured as fast as 100 km/hr.
Along with the heavy winds, Environment Canada’s Justin Schaer says the clipper also brought some wet snow. “A fair amount of water content in the snow, temperatures were around one degree, so wasn’t that fine fluffy stuff you might expect you might find in the deep winter in January.”
Along with the mixture of rain of snow, Schaer pointed out the terrain in the area created problems with the weather. “You have this combination of heavy thick wet snow piling up against the hills there, just very, very strong northwest winds driving a lot of that in.”
Schaer added the hills created additional problems. “If you can picture a push of air going up against the hills it just goes right up and that really enhances how much snow can be made over the area and again with a higher terrain it’s a little cooler as well.”
The southwest area of the province may see some more wet snow on Saturday according to Schaer, but he added it will not be like what the area saw earlier this week.
