After a pair of heavy storms settled over Estevan just before and during the holidays, the last month of the year had some decidedly harsh statistics.

Environment Canada has been tracking the amount of snowfall and temperatures across the month, putting those in high spots compared to other years.

Snowfall measurements do come with some hiccups - since the snowfall was brought in with high winds, getting an average snow depth can be tricky.

Meteorologist Terri Lang explains that they're looking at the amount brought in compared to other years, which shows heavier snowfall in 2022.

"With respect to precipitation - we always have some fun trying to capture snow in the winter, just because it's hard to catch snow. Our gauges tend to not capture as much snow, so often it sort of comes up on the dry side of things. But for Estevan, once the snow was melted down, 21.2 millimeters of precipitation compared to a 30-year average of 17.1 millimeters of precipitation.  So 124% of average, and that made it the 33rd wettest out of 96 years." 

The cold was easier to measure, with Estevan ending up with one of the colder Decembers on record.

"Like the rest of the province, Estevan did come out very much on the cold side temperature-wise. The average temperature for the month was minus 16.5, and that compares to the 30-year average of minus 11.8, so minus 4.7 degrees below what the average temperature is, and that made it the 13th coldest out of 101 years of records."

Lang noted that the system which brought that cold actually began tapering off in the east, meaning that Estevan was one of the warmer places on the prairies during December.

A bit of a break was brought by the wind, with the strongest wind being manageable for anyone stuck outside.

"Not much in the way of wind, that I can see. The strongest winds, look like they happened around the 16th of December and it was just over 60 kilometers per hour. That was about the strongest winds for the month, so nothing too outrageous."