Sask. temps dip well below seasonal as cold arctic air pounds Prairies

This month hasput the "brrrr" in October for Saskatchewan.

The provinceis experiencing temperatures much cooler than normal, according to Environment Canada.

"All across Saskatchewan, and across Manitoba as well, most of the month has been defined by below seasonal temperatures," said Brad Vrolijk, a lead forecaster with the national weather service.

"The defining weather feature that got established a little over a week ago, and has largely dominated the weather over the central and eastern Prairies as a whole, is a pretty large vortex sitting over western Hudson Bay and northern Manitoba," he said.

He wasn't able to verify whetherSaskatchewan is setting any cold-weatherrecords for this time of year, but said the weather witnessed in the province is hardly seasonal.

That's because the vortex has been supporting a consistent northwest airflow through most levels of theatmosphere, whichVrolijksaid"has just crashed arctic air" southwards into the Prairies.

In Regina on Saturday, temperatures dropped to 13 C at around 8 a.m., but Environment Canada reports with the wind chill, it felt like 21. Saskatoon also experienced a significant drop in temperatures overnight. Temperatures around 2 a.m. fell to 14 C, feeling like 21with the wind chill.

Vrolijk said it's tough to predict what the frigid October will mean for the rest of Saskatchewan's fall and winter.

"Were we to get a couple of days of westerly or southwest flow, at this time of year, things can still warm up very quickly, so it's hard to say much about how this is going to feed into the rest of winter," he said.

"For now though, and it looks like for at least the next week or two, it doesn't look like this vortex is going anywhere."

In southern Saskatchewan basically from Saskatoon down to Reginanormal temperatures hover around 10 C for a daytime high, with overnight lowsbetween 1 C to 4 C, Vrolijk said.

Right now, highs are hovering around 0 C and overnight lows ranging between 8 C and 12 C.

"So it's well below seasonal for this time of year," he said.

"We're looking at over 10 degrees below normal right now. So it's definitely cold, and it's not just people's imagination."