Last week in West Central Saskatchewan, temperatures were warmer than the average high of minus one.

Golden West Meteorologist, Drew Lerner explains why and what the next couple weeks are forecasting.

"The primary reason for the warmth really has to do with large scale weather pattern anomalies which are going on right now. One of which is El Meno, El Meno certainly has a tendency to delay the arrival of seasonal cooling and helps to build a ridge of high pressure over western parts of North America during the Autumn season. That tendency to suppress the precipitation as well as allow temperatures to be warmer than usual. That's been pretty much the case here up until recently. A little short term disruption to that pattern is under way right now, we'll probably have a second wave of colder air coming up next week. When we get done with that period of time we'll probably see some more warmer bias conditions coming up a little later down the road."

When asked if this winter will be slightly warmer than usual with a bit less snow than normal, Lerner had this to say,

"Yea I think that's absolutely going to be the case. There will be areas in the Prairies, especially against the mountains that will probably see a normal or even above average amount of snow fall. There will be a lot of other folks who just have kind of a moderate amount of snow. Nothing too substantial and nothing so absent that we're worried about the Spring."

Seasonal highs for this time of year are minus two with temperatures in the minus eleven to plus one range. When the warm front is expected to return in  about two weeks, or the beginning of December, temperatures will be hovering around minus three. Average highs for that time of year are around minus nine.