The landscape of the southeast is noticeably more white this year than last thanks to a major snowstorm that hit over the weekend. 

"The airport in Estevan recorded about 20 cm of snow," shared Regional Meteorologist, John Paul Cragg with Environment Canada. "Snow varied throughout the southeast and through eastern sections of the province."

"It's a huge change in precipitation for your neck of the woods. Before this system hit, Estevan airport had only recorded around 25 cm. So it's almost double the snow at the Estevan airport as you had seen between October through to the end of February. So a huge difference in snow cover."

He added that it was actually two systems responsible for the snow.

"The first one moved through Saturday and the second one began to affect province on Sunday afternoon and then continued into Monday. So together some areas of the province saw over 40 cm of snow."

He added that while it was a major snowstorm event, it was not technically a blizzard.

"Criteria for a blizzard according to Environment Canada now is four hours with visibility of 400 meters or less with 40 km/hr sustained winds." 

"In this particular event, Estevan, according to the airport, the visibility didn't get down that low for that long. Because of that, it wouldn't be classified as a blizzard. However, in many places, there wouldn't be much of a  difference between what you saw and what would be classified by us as blizzard given that visibilities were low for a long period of time."

Still, it is very different from the weather we received during the last winter. In 2016, Estevan got three storms between November and December with similar conditions.

"November 28th-30th, there was around 30 cm of snow. Then December 5th and 6th, there was 20 cm of snow. And then December 25th and 26th, there was another 25 cm of snow. So three times in less than a month period, you receive similar snowfall."

Cragg adds that the next weather, warm air is expected to enter the province with not a lot of precipitation in the forecast.