Southern Manitoba gets hit with stormy wild weather

Manitobans are dealing with the aftermath of a major storm that left a path of destruction along the way.

The storms were so intense they prompted severe thunderstorm and tornado watches and warnings.

Environment Canada confirmed a tornado did touch down near Waskada, Man. around 7:30 p.m.

There were reports of funnel clouds, softball-sized hail and heavy rainfall to accompany the thunder and lightning.

Softball sized hail was observed at 6:55 p.m. at Ninette.

Some areas were hit so hard, it looked like it was still winter.

Massive hail pelted down at the Pelican Campground & Lounge near Ninette, Man., roughly 220 kms southwest of Winnipeg.

Corlee Pushka told Global News there is plenty of damage including smashed windows and dented campers.

Environment Canada said hail in that area was the size of softballs.

There was much smaller hail in other parts, including walnut sized hail at Belmont.

In other areas, toonie sized hail hit Baldur and Winkler, loonie sized hail was seen south of Greenway and at La Riviere, quarter sized hail at Minto, Swan Lake and Hartney, nickel sized hail in Thornhill, golf ball sized hail in Manitou. The heaviest downpour was likely in Belmont where 76 mm fell in approximately 30 minutes.

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In Winnipeg, play was delayed twice in the CFL’s season opener between the Blue Bombers and Edmonton Eskimos, due to lightning.

Kickoff was at 7:35 p.m. and the total of the two delays was two hours and 55 minutes. The total time of the game was five hours and 42 minutes.

The Forks reported 42 mm of rain during the evening, with the airport recording 25 mm. Other noteworthy rainfall amounts were 48 mm at the Portage La Prairie agriculture station and 44 mm in
Somerset.

Manitoba Hydro confirmed more than 17,000 customers were still without power Friday morning.

“Part of the issue is the widespread nature of the storm that passed through,” Manitoba Hydro spokesperson Scott Powell said. “We have outages in the Killarney area through to Steinbach and north towards the southern Interlake. So it’s very widespread.

Large pockets of hundreds of customers in Winnipeg, Winkler, Roblin, Rosser and Portage la Prairie are all affected.

Manitoba Hydro said it has brought in extra crews to help restore power.

“We anticipate that in the Winnipeg area, most of the large feeders that are damaged should be on in the next couple of hours but there are some areas where there’s been extensive damage. We’re having to replace 16 spans of distribution lines, basically rebuild the system, in an area of River Heights. That affects around 550 customers.”

Hydro doesn’t anticipate that work to be complete until late Friday afternoon as it is expected to take at least eight hours.

“With the storm last night, in many cases we were doing our assessments and then lightning came back in and we can’t work when there is lightning in the area,” Powell said. “You get the large items restored first, the public safety items restored first and then you get to the smaller groups.

Hydro said the intense, high winds also caused problems for its team.

“In many areas we are having access issues with either back lanes or trees down on lines and having to clear those away first before we can do the repair work,” he said.