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Saskatchewan endures coldest spring in over a century

It's been a record-cold spring so far in many Saskatchewan communities. On April 11, Regina's Wascana Park was still snowbound.

It's been the coldest spring so far in Saskatchewan in 113 years.

According to CBC News, that's the word from Environment Canada's senior climatologist David Phillips.

"You have to go back to the early 1900s to find a temperature that was as cold on this morning in both Regina and Saskatoon and I'm sure in many other parts of the province," he told the CBC.

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Temperatures dropped to -13.1°C in Regina on Monday morning, and -11.1°C in Saskatoon, apparently making it the coldest April 22 in 104 years, according to the The Regina Leader Post. The 'winner' for yesterday morning, though, was probably Weyburn, SK, down near the U.S. border, where it got down to -13.6°C, blasting through the old April 22nd record of –7.2 degrees.

What's to blame for this? A persistent 'block' of high pressure over the prairies and the northern United States that doesn't seem to want to budge, and it's pulling cold Arctic winds down over the entire area. This 'block' is trailing after "Winter Storm Zeus" (at least that's what The Weather Channel in the U.S. is calling it), which is currently stretching from Lake Superior into Colorado.

There's some light at the end of this dark, cold tunnel for the prairies, though, as the forecast actually seems to let them join the rest of the country in experiencing some more 'normal' spring temperatures. The mercury could climb up into the double digits towards the weekend, although all the snow that's still on the ground will probably be doing its best to put a damper on that, and temperatures look like they're going to dip down a bit into next week.

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Keeping things cooler for now is probably a good thing for the prairies, though, or at least taking the climb into more seasonal temperatures a little bit slower. There are already worries about what this year's flood conditions will be like, and if the mercury jumps up too quickly, it could make the situation even worse.

As for "Zeus", it'll be tracking into Ontario and Quebec in the next few days, bringing rain to southern regions of both provinces and snow in the north, but it looks like it'll also carry those frigid temperatures to the north with it, sparing the eastern half of the country an April cold-snap.

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