Spiritwood RCMP just before noon Sunday indicated Highway 379 was no longer restricted and was open for travel. There had been flooding on Saturday between Rabbit Lake and Spiritwood after active weather Saturday in Saskatchewan with significant wind gusts, quarter sized hail and rain in different communities across the province.
Heather Pimiskern, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said Saturday morning there were reports of quarter sized hail in the Davidson area then as the day progressed, the Spiritwood area became one of the hardest hit areas receiving over 47mm of rain in a 6 hour period.
“There was a line of thunderstorms that developed around 5 p.m. last evening and because the way the synoptic pattern was those thunderstorms actually stayed over that region for a number of hours.”.
Pimiskern says the storms stayed in the area until 11 p.m. Saturday night. As for wind gusts, there was nothing spectacular but it was a steady onslaught of wind in the province. Spiritwood recorded a gust of 78 kilometeres per hour around 7 p.m. In Saskatoon around the same time a wind gust of 67 kilometers per hours was recorded.