Strong wind gusts, heavy rainfall and thunderstorms were reported from parts of southern and western Manitoba overnight Monday, with a storm forecasted to continue in western communities Tuesday.
A low-pressure system brought the stormy weather, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), which said the southern community of Boissevain saw 152 millimetres of rain as of 5 a.m. Tuesday.
“It was a lot of rain in a very short time and certainly devastated this community for a bit,” said Boissevain-Morton Mayor Judy Swanson.
“Over six inches of rain (fell) in an hour and a half and you could just see your yard filling with water. And it had nowhere to go.”
The mayor said she spent Tuesday morning dealing with her basement, which flooded during the storm.
“Even the insurance office had damage, water damage, inside,” Swanson said.
Five other communities in the province had more than 100 mm of rainfall, Environment Canada’s weather summary said.
Winnipeg saw less precipitation, with 27 mm reported. However, strong wind gusts blew through the Waverly West neighbourhood of Whyte Ridge.
As of Tuesday morning, the City of Winnipeg said tree damage is the main issue residents are reporting, with 111 downed or damaged trees reported thus far.
Requests for city crews to manage 10 sewer backups, four missing manhole covers, one plugged back lane catch basin and 22 plugged front street catch basins were received as of 7 a.m. Tuesday, the city wrote in an emailed statement.
“It literally sounded like a hurricane at the front door,” Doug Bows, a Whyte Ridge resident, recounted to Global News as he described the storm.
“Then we heard this huge crash and looked outside, and a couple of neighbours’ fences had blown down.”
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A storm with this intensity has not passed through the neighbourhood in Bows’ time living in Whyte Ridge, he said.
James Green lives nearby in the Waverly West neighbourhood of Bridgwater. He described the emotional toll of the storm.
“Last night got the heartbeat going. I got pretty nervous – when you’re looking out your back window and the rain was going sideways. (It) almost looked like it was going upwards at points,” he told 680 CJOB.
He said he headed to the basement with his dogs after seeing lawn furniture and, what he believed to be the roof to someone’s shed airborne during the storm.
Environment Canada’s radar picked up on “very strong winds” that caused localized damage, Chris Stammers, a senior meteorologist with ECCC, told 680 CJOB.
“We’re kind of surprised we didn’t see severe wind gusts at the airport because it’s usually highly sensitive to that,” he told the station.
Gusts as fast as 106 km/h were reported in the Manitoban city of Morden.
Manitou, Clearwater, Snowflake, Lac Du Bonnet, Pilot Mound and Gardenton reported winds at 80 km/h or faster, according to the weather information agency.
This storm knocked out power for some Manitoba Hydro customers.
More than 14,000 people woke up without electricity on Tuesday morning, according to the utility provider.
The City of Winnipeg also said there was an uptick in calls to its fire paramedic service “mostly from power lines down and a few alarm calls.”
Currently, the Crown corporation says it is working on the outages, and it hopes to restore power to all storm-affected customers in the coming days.
“100 millimetres of wind fell”
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