Canada Day ended with a bang Tuesday in Southern Manitoba, and not only from the fireworks. Late day thunderstorms, triggered by heat and humidity, also brought strong winds and hail to the region.
Eric Dykes is a Meteorologist with Environment Canada. He says the storms were not part of a major weather system but were the result of heat, humidity, and upper-atmospheric instability.
"There wasn't any large low-pressure system that was tied to the storms that actually went through Southern Manitoba yesterday," notes Dykes. "Regardless of the reasons why, there were some very good storms that we had to warn through parts of Southern Manitoba last night."
Dykes explains the storms started forming just north and west of Portage before tracking southeast through the evening and early overnight hours.
"We did receive a few reports from these storms of anywhere between pea-sized hail to perhaps upwards of nickel-sized hail," says Dykes.
He adds that those hail reports came mostly from areas south and east of Portage, including near Starbuck and south of Winnipeg. Wind, however, was another story.
"The station at Portage Southport did report at 9:05 pm a gust of 96 kilometres per hour," continues Dykes. "That is deemed to be a severe gust; anything over 90 would be deemed severe."
Another severe wind gust of 101 kilometres per hour was recorded at Cypress River just after 11 pm, according to Dykes.
"That's kind of what we saw with these storms," he remarks. "Initially the main threats looked to be hail and wind, it turned into more of a wind maker."
According to Manitoba Agriculture, Elm Creek was the location in Southern Manitoba with the highest rain amount at 26.8 millimetres (mm). Rainfall totals for the southeast are:
- St. Pierre - 18.1 mm
- Zhoda - 12.1 mm
- Rosa - 6.1 mm
- Gardenton - 5.6 mm
- Dominion City - 5.0 mm
- St. Adolphe - 4.2 mm
- Steinbach - 2.2 mm
- Marchand - 1.6 mm
- Dugald - 1.3 mm
- Richer - 1.0 mm
- St. Labre - .9 mm
Meanwhile, according to Dykes, the next potential round of storms is expected Thursday night into Friday.
"We're going to start to see some of the storms firing off through western North Dakota and southeastern Saskatchewan," he says. "That's likely where the severe threat will hold, but the rainfall may of course push a little bit further east."
As for Wednesday's forecast, Environment Canada is calling for a hazy sky with a high of 29 degrees and a UV index of 9 or very high.
With files from Cory Knutt