Lack of snow cover in Sask. making farmers nervous

The prospect of a white Christmas is diminishing. While that may be good news for some, Saskatchewan farmers are looking at the dry ground with concern.

If you’re in Saskatoon or any of the major cities in our province, you are likely able to get outside without having to battle snow and cold, and with only a few days to go until Christmas, by all indications you won’t need your snow gear.

“We define a white Christmas as Christmas Day having two centimetres or more as measured at the airports,” said Terri Lang, meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Photos taken at airport monitoring stations show Yorkton with one centimeter of snow and Meadow Lake not indicating much to mention.

While some folks are enjoying this El Niño December, farmers in the province are generally not.

“If things carry on and we don’t get precipitation, it’s setting ourselves up for a pretty tough year,” said Phillip Harder, research associate with the Centre for Hydrology at the University of Saskatchewan.

There are other factors that complicate the situation for producers, like the fact that it was a dry summer and fall and the rain Saskatoon and area got earlier in the month, made things worse.

“What that’s really done is frozen our soil surface, there’s a saturated layer at the surface, and with that being frozen we don’t have a very good infiltration potential headed into the spring,” he says.

According to Harder, the southwest and west-central parts of the province are in the worst shape currently, but there are areas of the northern grain belt that have some snow.

At the Estevan station they’re measuring four centimeters right now, but that could change with plus temperatures on the way. In Cypress Hills, they have snow in the higher elevations, thanks to a recent storm.

Where else can you find snow?

“You have to go north of Yorkton, Hudson Bay and Nipawin up through there they have snow on the ground,” Lang said.

The Waskesiu monitoring station is showing the most snow of them all, and Lang is safely declaring a white Christmas there. However there still isn’t enough snow cover for winter activities like cross country skiing.

The view from Waskesiu (Source: Facebook/Hawood Inn)

The turnoff of Highway 2 into Christopher Lake is the first place you’ll see snow in that direction.

So, if you’re missing the white stuff you can likely drive a few hours and get your fill. Those in the agriculture industry can’t get what they want quite as easily.

Harder remains hopeful that a couple good snow dumps will arrive and change dry conditions significantly.