
SOUTHERN SASKATCIISTAN 
Weather and Water Conditions 
The best way to describe the habitat condition in southern 
Saskatchewan this spring is to say that it is a repeat of the situa- 
tion a year ago, only worse. A dry cold winter with very little 
snowfall continued the drouth in all areas, some areas worse than 
others. In no area did we find water conditions improved from May 
1958. The prairie areas were in the poorest shape. Only B-East, 
which is near the parkland, had a reasonable show of water. It 
had a few bright spots near Humboldt and also south and east of 
Prince Albert; however, the overall B-East pond index of 334,500 
water areas is down from 489,600 a year ago. Considering the over- 
all pond index, for all strata in the southern portion of the 
Province, it was down 53 percent from a year ago and down 71 
percent from tie nine year (1949 through 1957) average. ‘The total 
pond index in May 1958 was 1,662,700 compared to 783,400 this year. 
The nine year average index is 2,650,700. 
Spring rains in early and mid-May generally helped grain 
crop outlooks and pasture but the small amounts did nothing to 
improve water conditions for waterfowl. As of May 20, due to cool 
May, seeding of grains was about 60 percent done; a year ago it 
was 80 percent finished. Actually a warm April brought in early 
migrants, with an early break-up, and found mallards and pintails 
nesting by mid-April. However, a cold snap on April 25 brought. 
temperatures down to 5°-10° above zero in many southern parts of 
the Province and no doubt cancelled out mich of this early egg- 
laying activity. 
As far as farmers of the Province were concerned the 
drought was broken in June. However, most of the water was 
absorbed by the dry ground and little if any runoff was noted. 
A few areas had sheet water present during the early weeks in 
July, but this was rapidly disappea:ing as only rain~shower 
activities prevailed during July. Some water collected in a few 
potholes from the June rains and helped to slow down the complete 
drying up of some of the larger sloughs and ponds. Many larger 
areas, however, that had water in them last fall, were completely 
dry as of this July. 
The pond index for July for the area was down 44 percent 
from 1958; 1959 index--428,423, 1958-index--764,942. The six-year 
average (1952-1957) stood at 2,207,400. The 1959 pond index was. 
81 percent below that six-year average. This has been a steady 
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