The month of July had all sorts of weather trends in Saskatchewan.
Environment Canada's weather stats for last month show temperatures at all their weather stations were within one degree of historical averages, but it was due to a hot first half and a cool second half.
Meteorologist Crawford Luke notes the temperature on July 3 was up to 32.4 degrees, while July 9 was the hottest day of the month at 34.9 degrees. While temperatures in between those dates were in the mid-to-high 20 degree mark, the following two weeks were down to the high-teens or the low twenties.
"So a pretty prolonged spell of cool weather which is a bit unusual to expect in the middle of July," said Luke, adding it warmed up again on July 25 to 32.8 degrees.
Regina had its hottest days within the first week of July before things cooled down, recording an average temperature of 18.1 degrees. Saskatoon, Swift Current, Prince Albert, and La Ronge had similar temperature trends.
For precipitation, Luke said it was mostly dry around the province except for the southwest and parts of the southeast. Swift Current recorded 66.7 millimetres of precipitation last month, above the average of 46.2, due to a significant rainfall event in mid-July. Saskatoon and Estevan also receive more rain than usual.
"That's definitely good news for that area as I suspect because they were kind of eager to get some rain," Luke said of the southwest.
On the opposite end, Key Lake and North Battleford had their third driest July on record and La Ronge and Prince Albert had their second driest July on record. Regina was on the dry side with 37.7 millimetres of rain recorded for the month, which is 63 per cent of normal.
Hail was also reported in the middle of the month.
He said the largest report of hail came on July 25 in Handsworth, Sask. where the hail was the size of a golf ball and other areas reported quarter-sized hail or larger. Regina had quarter-sized hail during a storm on July 20, he added.
Another notable weather event last month was the smoke from wildfires in northern Saskatchewan. Luke said there was a stretch of 14 days last month where air quality alerts were in effect for Regina, compared to 19 days of air quality alerts in all of 2024.
Funnel clouds were reported around the province, including a report of a tornado south of Swift Current and reports of two tornadoes near Saskatoon, he said, but Environment Canada is actively verifying those.
