A brief period of strong winds Monday morning snapped tree limbs, knocked down trees and caused power outages across the southern Red River and Pembina Valleys.
"The wind gusts were the result of the flow coming out of a line of strong to severe thunderstorms that extended from nearly the Canada/U.S. border southward through the entire state of North Dakota to the the South Dakota border," explained CMOS Accredited Weathercaster Chris Sumner. "In the wake of that line of storms passing to our south, very strong southerly wind gusts were created."
PEMBINA VALLEY: we're seeing outages throughout the region because of today's high winds. Crews are responding as quickly and safely as possible. #mboutage pic.twitter.com/R2i1lAbXjw
— Manitoba Hydro (@manitobahydro) June 24, 2024
As of 9:45 a.m. numerous power outages were noted on the Manitoba Hydro outages map including the Altona, St. Joseph, Emerson, Morden, Neuenberg, Blumenfeld, Hochfeld, Reinland, Rosengart and Schoenwiese areas. There were also many rural outages on yards throughout the region. Shortly after 10 a.m., Manitoba Hydro indicated about 1,500 customers were without power across the region.
The strongest winds occurred between 8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., and it appears the Altona area saw the strongest of them all, with a peak south-southwesterly gust of 103 km/h recorded in the 9 a.m. hour.
For the latest forecast details, click here.
So the question is, just how strong were those gusts? According to data from Environment Canada and the Manitoba Ag Weather Network, the following are the peak gusts of event:
Altona – 103 km/h
Emerson – 96 km/h
Windygates – 89/km
Winkler (south of city) – 87 km/h
Pilot Mound – 82 km/h
Snowflake – 80 km/h
Gretna – 78 km/h
Manitou – 77 km/h
Somerset – 72 km/h
Clearwater – 69 km/h
Morden – 65 km/h
Sumner noted additional severe weather may be on the way late Monday afternoon and evening.
"Not much has changed from yesterday when I first noted the potential risk," he said. "All of the ingredients will be available for severe thunderstorm development from the Red River Valley east to the Ontario border, but the question is whether they will come together at the right time. There will be ample moisture, instability and wind shear over the area, with a passing front the potential trigger. With that said, warmer air aloft, an atmospheric cap, will prevent storm development. Also, if there is limited daytime heating from sunshine due to lingering cloud cover from Monday morning's passing storms to the south, that would also work against storm development. It's a complex scenario today, and we won't really know how this will play out until the afternoon hours."
The below photo gallery includes submissions from Myron Dyck, Delores Smith, Laverne Siemens and Corney Unger: