The Saskatoon region has already received as much snow as it usually gets all winter – about 100 centimetres. “Already, we’ve exceeded our yearly normal snowfall,” said John-Paul Cragg with Environment Canada. And winter hasn’t even officially started yet. The City of Saskatoon is close to using up its annual $7.5 million snow clearing budget – including clearing ruts that have built up on streets because of the heavy snow. “Way more,” said Pat Hyde with the City of Saskatoon. “The last time we put out a call for a rut blitz was in March of 2010.” It’s one more indication that 2012 has been a rough year for storms on the Prairies. In fact Saskatchewan has already broken one record – for tornados. The spring and summer saw 33 confirmed tornados touch down in Saskatchewan. That beats the previous record of 32, set in 1991. On one day alone – June 15 – seven tornados touched down in the province. “We had systems passing over the province at the right time of day to spark up these kinds of events,” said Cragg. “Good upper level winds to support them – it was just a really perfect situation (for tornados).” While most of the tornados were weak – F-0 to F-2 – they still caused some significant damage. Environment Canada adds there could be a few more snowfalls before the end of the year – capping off a big year for both summer and winter storms.
