Many Saskatchewan residents had their Canada Day celebrations halted as thunderstorms grazed through parts of the province causing damage and even power outages.
Hafford resident Duncan Stead was inside his house when the storm hit yesterday evening. He did not realize the extent of the damage until the storm was over.
“We didn’t even hear it. It was kind of crazy. Like the tree came down and didn’t even hear it happened,” said Stead. “It was it was pretty heavy wind; it took a power line down. So, we (have) no power.”
Using a chainsaw to cut down the tree that fell over his house, Stead and volunteers take the day to clear the debris on and around his house. Stead was one of many Saskatchewan residents who were in similar situations throughout the province.
According to Environment Canada, the storm developed off a low-pressure system that was in Alberta as that low pushed into west central Saskatchewan.
“That fired up quite a number of storms that moved through the Meadow Lake, Battlefords, Prince Albert and Prince Albert National Parks region,” said Meteorologist Dan Fulton. “Lots of reports of hail from around the Meadow Lake area, lots of golf ball sized hail … (and) had a gust to almost 100 kilometres an hour.”
Fulton said there were lots of reports of trees downed, power outages, some minor structural damage such as missing shingles on the rooftops. Environment Canada said there were no reports of tornadoes but there reports of hail and wind events usually triggered by kind of synoptic scale disturbances like low pressure systems.
Reports of the severe thunderstorms began as early as 7:00 p.m. and carried on until late in the evening.