Bad winter weather conditions throughout Wednesday night resulted in poor road conditions and power outages across the area.
The Battlefords and the entire province were under an extreme cold warning again with wind chills below the -40 mark.
As well, the area was under a blowing snow advisory with travellers reporting dangerous conditions and poor visibility on area roads throughout Wednesday evening.
The Highway Hotline reported several “travel not recommended” warnings for highways in the vicinity, including Highway 16 between Maidstone and Lloydminster, Highway 378, Highway 3, and part of Highway 4. Poor visibility was reported everywhere, however, including Highway 4 south and Highway 29 to Wilkie, among others.
Even after conditions improved, there were widespread reports of snowdrifts on roads inside the city and town limits this morning.
There were also several bus cancellations reported. Living Sky School Division announced that all rural school bus services were cancelled Thursday “due to extreme weather conditions.” and that the buses that did not run that morning will not operate in the afternoon. There had also been widespread bus cancellations on Wednesday as well. However, Living Sky schools remained open, despite the conditions.
On a related topic, the game in Prince Albert between the Prince Albert Mintos and the Battlefords AAA Stars was cancelled Thursday, as the Stars’ bus was unable to travel due to the cold conditions.
Power outages were an issue in many parts of the province, including in the Battlefords and area Wednesday night.
SaskPower reported at 7:04 p.m. that North Battleford, Lloydminster, Maidstone, Meota, Cut Knife, Unity and Wilkie all suffered from flickering power due to the high winds.
At 6:17 a.m. Thursday, SaskPower reported that crews were going around North Battleford looking to find the cause of the flickering lights issue. At 7:30 a.m. they reported the issue had been fixed and power restored.
Around 9:49 a.m. SaskPower reported another issue: a downed line affecting the area near the Highway 16 bypass. By 10:30 a.m. they reported all power was restored.
As of Thursday afternoon, Environment Canada still had in place an extreme cold warning for the Battlefords and area, as well as much of the rest of the province. Wind chill was expected to continue to be in the -40to -45 range into Friday morning.
But there was some good news: a warm up is expected to begin Friday with the highs reaching -2 C by Sunday.
Temperatures are expected to get above the zero mark as the week progresses.
