Parts of southern Manitoba were hit hard by a storm Wednesday, with strong winds, rain, and hail ripping through some communities as the system moved east into northwestern Ontario.
Environment Canada meteorologist Jason Knight said one region of the province was hit especially hard by the storm.
“We had all sorts of incredible hail reports throughout the day,” Knight told 680 CJOB’s The Start.
“Selkirk — baseball-sized hail. Falcon Lake — baseball-sized hail. And of course, at Beausejour, significant amounts of wind damage, with roofs damaged, power poles, trees snapped apart, entire sheds and trailers destroyed.”
The wild weather left many areas without power, with several small outages still in effect by Thursday morning, according to Manitoba Hydro’s website.
Environment Canada is looking into at least two potential tornadoes that may have touched down in Manitoba on Wednesday, but they have yet to be confirmed.
“Up at Fisher River, it looks like a potential tornado … so we’ll be investigating that. They also received grapefruit hail that’s 10 centimetres across — incredible hail, that not just shattered windshields but also cracked the metal roofs of the same trucks.”
Wind patterns in Beausejour are also being investigated after reports of a potential tornado there.
A combination of factors led to “perfect storm” conditions Wednesday, Knight said.
“That combination of heat and humidity and just that right alignment of winds throughout the atmosphere and just the low-pressure system coming through.
“Sometimes we have the heat, sometimes we have the humidity, and we get some storms — but the perfect alignment of all of those allowed those enormous supercells to develop so quickly yesterday,” Knight said Thursday.
The water tower in Selkirk was also struck by lightning, but according to the city, no damage was caused.