A tornado near Kleefeld and wild temperature swings throughout southern Manitoba made for an interesting week of weather.
But the most dramatic weather event might have happened at Delta Beach, where extreme winds produced an ice surge that wreaked havoc on lakefront properties.
People born and raised at Delta Beach, north of Portage la Prairie, say the ice comes in like clockwork every year. Though loud and sometimes crashing like an earthquake, the ice forming a ridge along the shoreline is typically harmless.
Last weekend, however, extreme winds pushed the ice onto the shores much quicker than in previous years, leading to significant damage to docks and decks. Kelly Tomalin of the Delta Beach Association, who has lived at Delta for most of his life, says this year's ice surge is unlike anything they have ever experienced.
"There are mountains of ice out there," says Tomalin. "It's the worst it's ever been. We've had a little ice before but not like now."
Paulette Connery, a resident who has lived permanently at Delta Beach for the past 13 years, says there are piles of ice reaching the height of cabin windows, with some structures destroyed in the wake of the sudden buildup.
"I've never seen it like this," says Connery. "There's a lot of damage out there, decks are gone. It was piled right up to a neighbour's window."
Longtime resident Rick Henderson says he was shocked by what he saw Monday morning after hearing the familiar sounds of ice shifting overnight.
"It came in on Sunday night. When I looked out in the morning, the ice was piled up right up on top of my bar and then down the lakeshore to the west," says Henderson.
Henderson says while the wind was not the strongest the area has seen, the conditions on the lake created an ideal setup for destruction.
"We've had stronger winds than that," continues Henderson. "It was just a perfect scenario where the ice broke further out, and the water got underneath the ice and floated it in."
Residents are now left to pick up the icy pieces and assess the damage left behind by nature's force.
Meanwhile, Natalie Hasell with Environment Canada says the funnel cloud reported Wednesday over Kleefeld was actually a confirmed tornado. Hasell explains that we had a low-pressure system in the southeast portion of the province with an associated cold front and those two synoptic features probably acted as the lifting mechanism to start the vertical motion. She adds the low-pressure system might also have supplied a bit of general rotation to the area. Then, with the instability, there was convection, which Hasell says is a really good setup for cold core funnel clouds.
"These are associated with these cooler days, low-pressure systems, large circulation, maybe some circulation at the surface also gets kind of picked up and spun up with the convection and one of these clouds could spit out a funnel cloud," she explains.
She adds that The Northern Tornadoes Project found evidence that the funnel cloud of that rotating column of air did make contact with the surface. And so, by definition, it was actually a landspout tornado. She notes landspout tornadoes do not generally produce much damage and also do not last very long because there is too much friction at the surface. Hasell says there was no damage reported from the landspout tornado near Kleefeld.
The week has seen a wild swing in temperatures. According to Environment Canada, the temperature dipped to -6.6 degrees on Tuesday morning. And, by this weekend, temperatures in Winnipeg are forecast to hit 24 on Saturday and 28 on Sunday. The normal high for this time of year is 18 degrees.
Hasell explains that the warmup is happening across western Canada. Sunday and Monday are forecast to be the warmest days at 28 degrees, though temperatures in Saskatchewan are expected to be even higher.
"So really dangerous for wildland fires and grass fires and that type of thing," says Hasell. "So, people do need to pay attention and take precautions. The shift is due to a large upper ridge coming from the west and settling over the Prairies."
Hasell says a frontal structure will come through and cool things off after Monday, but only for a few days. She notes the warm weather this weekend will likely not be hot enough to create warning criteria, but it will be significantly warmer than what we are used to. It also might not be hot enough to break any temperature records.
With files from Maryssa McFadden