Environment Canada has released its temperature and precipitation data for October and it showed the month was drier and milder than normal in the province.  

Danielle Dejardins, an Environment Canada meteorologist says that here in Moose Jaw in terms of temperature we were among the trendsetters in the province.  

“The monthly mean temperature ended up at 6.6 degrees and the normal is 5.6, so one degree above normal for the month of October,” says Dejardins.  

Moose Jaw wasn’t the only location that was above their temperature normal.  

“It looks like everybody was above whether it was one degree or I’m seeing as high as four degrees above average. It was definitely a very mild October and a warm start to fall essentially.” 

The biggest trendsetter was La Ronge as they came in four degrees above their 2.3-degree normal, which was their warmest October on record in 57 years of data. Our friends to the west in Swift Current were 2.3 degrees above normal, and to the east Regina was 1.5 degrees warmer than their average.  

Due to the milder October precipitation amounts were significantly below average for the province. A late October snowfall that brought 25 to 40 centimetres of snow actually left Moose Jaw above average for precipitation in October.  

“The average monthly in October is 25.1 mm and the normal is 20.6 mm, so it was slightly above average, but I would say given that precipitation can range so widely Moose Jaw’s pretty much right near the average for October precipitation.” 

Moose Jaw saw 122 per cent of its normal precipitation amounts for October.  

La Ronge came in as the driest place in Saskatchewan, only seeing 3.3 millimetres of precipitation in October, which was the lowest precipitation amount seen in October in 56 years of data.  

Swift Current had 16.7 mm fall in October, which equalled 92 per cent of the normal, while Regina saw 23.1 mm, just below their 24.5 mm average.  

Dejardins says that this mild weather seen in October across the province isn’t unusual.  

“We do some of the fall months especially October with the thunderstorms season winding down and more of the cold air coming in so we do tend to see overall a drier month in October as the season changes.”