Thanks to an upper ridge over much of southern Manitoba, southeast Saskatchewan, and much of the province for that matter, is under a heat warning. Daytime temperatures are expected to be 30° or warmer, and the overnight lows around the 20° mark. The heat isn’t the only thing we will have to be watching for either. 

“We’ll have hot, humid air and not only will this bring heat, but it will also bring a chance of showers and a risk of thunderstorms,” explained Natalie Hasell. She is a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. “Almost everything that we can think of summer-wise.” 

The forecast is calling for the heat to stick around for much of the week, and this will be something that hasn’t been seen in 35 years. Hasell explained this is the first time since 1988 that there has been a stretch of five or more days with a daytime high above 30° in the month of June. That year, there were two extremely hot stretches in June – one that lasted eight days and another that lasted six. 

“We’re not going to see quite so long a stretch this time,” Hasell said. “I think we’re all happy about that.” 

So, when will there be some relief from the 30° or hotter? Hasell said that could come, in a way, on the weekend. 

“The high 20s may be your relief,” Hasell pointed out as the mercury is expected to stay below the 30° mark on the weekend. Temperatures will fall below the criteria for a heat warning over the weekend, but some of the forecast models are showing those temperatures could jump back up early next week as well. She is expecting things to start to return to seasonal by the middle of the month.  

The heat and humidity can also increase the risk of pop-up thunderstorms. 

“We’ve got all the elements that we could need for thunderstorms,” Hasell continued. This includes moisture thanks to recent rains, as well as an atmosphere that will allow vertical motion as things warm up. The potential trigger for the storm would be the heat itself. 

“We do also have that frontal structure and the trough structure,” Hasell stated about what we could see in terms of unsettled weather today. “The trough is more through western Saskatchewan so that might be our area of focused attention for thunderstorms but we could see air mass thunderstorms in the rest of southern and central Saskatchewan.” 

The system that is building up to bring about the possibility of the storms could end up resulting in a repeat tomorrow, and that cycle could continue through the heat wave, depending on whether or not the storms do develop. 

Stay up to date with the latest forecast by visiting the Discover Weyburn Weather page.