A new provincial January maximum wind gust record was set with the storm last night when Bratts Lake, south of Regina, had a wind gust to 143 km/h. If you noticed what looks like snowballs in and around Saskatoon, in seeming larger number than you’d expect, the weather conditions last night were ideal for a rare phenomenon called snowrollers.

Environment Canada meteorologist Terri Lang says they are rare because you need quite warm conditions when its snowing.

“The winds have to be really, really strong with this really, really sticky snow and so when you get a little bit of a lip going, when the wind is blowing that hard it gets the ball rolling, literally it gets the snowball rolling, and you get a whole series of these rollers.”

She says people who got up this morning to see snow stuck to the side of their house, speaks to how sticky the snow was which she characterizes as perfect snowman-making-weather as well as snowroller-making-weather.

And if you thought you saw lightning last night in Saskatoon, Terri Lang says there was one strike in southwest Saskatchewan Wednesday afternoon but not Wednesday night. Lang says the Environment Canada lightning detection network did not pick up any lightning strikes. She says they also check other lightning strike networks which did not record lightning Wednesday night. Lang says they presume the flashes of light were from power lines sparking.

For details on the condition of Saskatchewan roads click here.

List of communities which saw winds of 100 km/h or more:

Saskatoon Airport 102
Regina University 126
Regina Airport 115 (sensor went off line during the peak of the
storm)

Bratts Lake 143
Yellowgrass 133
Elbow 122
Mankota 120
Estevan 120 (sensor went off line during the peak of the storm)
Moose Jaw 119 (sensor went off line during the peak of the storm)
Eastend Cypress 111
Swift Current 109
Rockglen 106 (sensor went off line during the peak of the storm.
Rosetown 104
Maple Creek 104
Weyburn 102 (sensor went off line during the peak of the storm)
Leader 100