WINNIPEG – Manitobans woke up to a coat of snow on holiday Monday.
Fallen trees, broken power lines and damaged buildings are all part of the aftermath of a Colorado storm that swept through the province Sunday.
The wicked weekend weather was widespread across the southern part of the province with freezing rain and snow covering fields.
“There’s a number of areas that have experienced severe damage to the distribution infrastructure and its taking us time to get those,” said Scott Powell of Manitoba Hydro.
About 5,000 Manitobans lost power over the weekend, especially in the Brandon area to Ontario border, keeping hydro crews extremely busy in order to restore power to homes by the end of the day Monday.
“Everyone who was available is working,” said Powell. “Freezing rain… coats lines and makes them very, very heavy and if you add wind you get what we call galloping conductors.”
Environment Canada said the last time Winnipeg saw significant snowfall in May was 2004 and cold, arctic air will sit over the prairies with a threat of frost until Tuesday morning before temperatures start to rebound towards normal later in the week,
The storm conditions caused many families to spend the long weekend indoors.
“We tried to do the cleaning weekend kind of thing because what else do you do so…. was just staying in watching movies,” said Eleanor Actimichuk who spent Monday at The Forks with her family.
Hoping the rest of spring looks different.
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