After what has seemed like eons of waiting we are finally hitting that season when the snow melts, the sun shines, and the birds chirp. That's right - spring is in the air. March 20th marks the start of Astronomical Spring. Environment Canada's meteorologist Terri Lang fill us in on the time of year and what kind of weather we can expect in the next little while. 

"We refer to what's happening tomorrow as Astronomical Spring. What that means is at this time of year the sun is just over the equator. It's called the Spring Equinox and this is the time when both daylight and nighttime are the same amount of time.

From here on in, the days will be getting longer and the nights shorter. This will happen until the first day of summer, but that is what we mean when we say 'astronomical spring.'

What that means for the people in Saskatchewan is we get to see more daylight. It doesn't really have an effect on the weather per se.

What we call Meteorological Spring takes place over March, April, May, so when we talk about the spring forecast we are talking about Meteorological Spring. Not much difference in the grand scheme of things."  

The milder temperatures we have been seeing over the last few days is a welcome reprieve from the deep freeze that was one of the coldest Februarys on record. For the time being it looks like things are going to be staying on the warmer side.

"Well, spring actually has sprung. I think people are starting to notice that the temperatures are finally on the positive side.

The warm temperatures are working away at the snow pack and that's kind of why the temperatures have been depressed, just because we have to get rid of a lot of the snow before the temperatures can really get a lot warmer and that's because the snow and ice bounce away a lot of radiation from the sun. 

Once the snowpack starts melting here across the south, which it will do here quite rapidly, over the next week or so we will see the temperatures start to climb and that's why we're forecasting temperatures as warm as we have.