Except for two days of minus single digit temperature days, Southwest Saskatchewan has been experiencing a chilly start to 2022.
The region has experienced minimum temperatures of -30 or below during four of the first six days of the year.
Environment Canada reported that eight communities in the province recorded new daily minimum temperature records on Thursday, January 6 when an Extreme Cold Warning was in effect for most of Saskatchewan.
Leader plunged to -39.0 Celsius to erase the previous record of -36.5 set in 1991. It also stands as the coldest January 6 in Leader since records have been kept dating back to 1924.
Assiniboia set a new record of -36.5 Celsius to eclipse the previous mark of -36.0 from 1982. Lucky Lake broke its former record of -35.0 set in 1976 when the mercury plunged to -38.3 Celsius.
Other provincial records were:
Last Mountain Lake -42.0 Celsius (old record -40.0 in 1996).
Elbow -38.4 Celsius (old record -36.0 in 1991).
Meadow Lake -41.9 Celsius (old record -41.1 in 1966).
Outlook -38.3 Celsius (old record -34.4 in 1966).
Rockglen -33.8 Celsius (old record -31.2 in 2014).
The Southwest experienced a brief break from the extreme cold on Friday afternoon when a warm front was replaced by a quick moving cold front, with temperatures forecast to climb to near zero before plunging 10 to 15 degrees Celsius over a span of a few hours. Temperatures will continue to fall until bottoming out in the mid -20 range.
