Steam can be seen rising from the South Saskatchewan River on Friday as temperatures fell below -30C during an extreme cold warning. Environment Canada is forecasting a bitter cold weekend with the low forecasted to dip below -40C Saturday evening. The good news is the frigid temperatures are going to be relatively short lived, with milder weather due sometime next week.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
The plunge to polar-like conditions in Medicine Hat this week may be unusually late in the winter, but isn’t presenting any unusual challenges for city transportation crews.
Just the second substantial snowfall of the winter arrived in Medicine Hat this week along with an extremely cold air mass.
That set in motion street sanding and snow clearing crews, and though the accumulation isn’t particularly substantial, it is slowed by frigid temperatures.
“It does take a little longer, but nothing is preventing us from getting out and operating,” Craig Maunder, operations engineer with the municipal works department, said Friday afternoon.
Crews continue to sand intersections and plow, and will continue through the weekend as needed as temperature hover below -30C.
“Sidewalk-clearing machines seem to take the brunt of it, and we have workers clearing by hand (with shovels and blowers),” Maunder said.
Crews will leave some of the more remote pathways and trails uncleared during the cold weather this weekend and concentrate on more well-used sections, the city announced later Friday.
Records set
The recent cold record for Jan. 12 was set in 2018 at -30.5C, while the records for Jan. 13-15 were set during an extreme cold snap in 2005 at -33.3C, -34.5C and -34.7C, respectively.
Forty below is the predicted low at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning.
The high is only expected to reach -35C on Sunday before the extreme cold begins to ease Monday to a high of -24C.
Travel
WestJet cancelled flights to and from the Medicine Hat Regional Airport on Friday and similarly halted two early flights Saturday, according to the company’s website.
Major highways in the region were in generally good condition but with winter driving conditions, according to government highway reports in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Both urged caution and preparedness in the very cold conditions or to delay travelling if possible.
Telus outage
Provincial media report that substantial outages in the Telus communications network overnight into Thursday include areas of Medicine Hat but were largely resolved by 6 a.m.
Power spike
The Alberta Electrical System operator issued an early warning to conserve power at 4:15 p.m. on Friday as demand was set to rise per usual during the supper and early evening hours on weekdays.
The Alberta power grid recorded a new high in demand at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 11 at 12,384 megawatts, at which point the market price for electricity was $629 per megawatt hour, or 62.9 cents per kilowatt hour.
Prices peaked to $990 per megawatt at 10 a.m. Friday then fell off for most of the day before rising again in the evening.
The City of Medicine Hat’s power plant produced a consistent supply of about 240 megawatts over the last several days, including some portion for export sales. Officials do not expect any problems with supply internal to Medicine Hat customers.
