A powerful storm system formed just south of Moose Jaw last night, and while it didn’t have much of an impact here in the city, it certainly left its mark on communities to the east.
The system tracked eastwards across Saskatchewan, depositing large amounts of rainfall and hail as it went. Lumsden was among the hardest hit; the town was battered by hailstones up to five centimetres in diameter in the early evening.
“That's the largest one that we're aware of from yesterday,” said Meteorologist Crawford Luke.
“It seems like they were the ones that got hit the hardest. We had another quarter sized hail report—like two and a half centimeters or one inch diameter—down in Horizon.”
Luke noted that the inclement weather was widespread, with additional hail reports as far north as Humboldt. However, rainfall levels varied wildly.
“So, Regina had about five millimetres, the highest total I can see is actually in Weyburn. They had about 32 mm of rain from the evening storms,” Luke explained.
“We had a lot of high rainfall estimates with that southern storm, down north of Big Beaver in that area, but we just don't have a rain gauge in that area unfortunately. Some of the radar estimates here suggest that they would have had quite a substantial rainfall of maybe 70mm or more.”
He added that radar estimates in the Raymore area place their precipitation levels close to 50 mm following yesterday’s storm.
The forecast heading into the weekend in the Moose Jaw area is less severe, as current models show the bulk of storm activity will be concentrated around southeast Saskatchewan and into Manitoba.
“Today would kind of be, I guess you'd say, more garden variety thunderstorms. Maybe a downpour, probably not too substantial. Saturday kind of looks like a repeat of that. I'm a little nervous that the Sunday forecast is going to kind of turn into the Saturday forecast as well,” said Luke.
“I don't think it's going to be a washout of a weekend by any means. I still think it's going to be fairly enjoyable weekend weather wise. There probably will be a few showers or thunderstorm here or there. If anyone's planning outdoor activities to just kind of keep that in mind.”
Luke did mention that Moose Jaw residents shouldn’t be too concerned about the forecast ahead of Saturday night’s Canada Day Fireworks.
“I wish I could promise a sunny, clear evening for the fireworks but even if you do get a rain shower or thunderstorm it probably will be a case of just waiting an hour or two, then you'd be good to go.”
According to SGI, as of noon on Friday, the Lumsden area had 140 auto hail claims and 26 property hail claims. SGI is expecting that number to grow as residents assess the damage and file claims. Customers have two years to finalize repairs and settle total losses after reporting a claim.