Steinbach

La Bikequerie is kicking off the cycling season with a community barbeque. 

La Bikequerie was founded in 2022 by Wade Wiebe, who says the idea came after a memorable bike trip to Ottawa with his wife. 

They had invested a lot of time maintaining their bikes and wanted to get involved in Steinbach’s cycling community. 

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.  

The federal riding of Terrebonne in Quebec has gone from the Liberals' win column back to the Bloc Québécois after a postelection vote validation process.

Bloc candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, who had represented the riding since 2021, said in a social media post that she came out with a lead of 44 votes and that a judicial recount will take place.

"For someone to be officially elected, you have to wait until the end of this process," Sinclair-Desgagné wrote in French. "I hope to have the honour of representing Terrebonne again in the coming years."

Conservative MP Damien Kurek is set to step aside to allow Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to run in a byelection in the Battle River—Crowfoot riding in Alberta.

Kurek says he is "temporarily" stepping aside as MP for the riding, which he has held since 2019.

The Conservative party confirms that Poilievre will run in the Battle River—Crowfoot byelection once it's called.

Alberta

The St. Mary River Irrigation District (SMRID) is notifying irrigators that they are now accepting water orders.

For the 2025 irrigation season, water allocation will remain at 12 inches at the farm gate based on the recent Irrigation Water Supply Forecast from Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation.

Crews have started flushing lines and are charging the system for water startup, expected to be available across the entire district by May 5th to 9th.

In addition to provincial fire and travel restrictions that became effective Friday morning, the RM of Stuartburn, RM of Piney, RM of Ste. Anne, RM of Taché, and RM of La Broquerie have all instituted their own burn bans.

Seeding season is off to a slow start in eastern Manitoba, according to a local seed specialist.  

Karis Hutlet, Sales Associate and Agronomist with Marc Hutlet Seeds in Dufresne, says, still, farmers are feeling optimistic with warm weather in the forecast and equipment prepped and ready to roll. 

The Manitoba Cornhole Association is hosting a provincial tournament this weekend in Steinbach.

Daren Funk, director of the Eastman Cornhole League says it will be a fun and bean-bag filled weekend, kicking off tonight (May 2) at 6 p.m. with a "Switcholio" mixer.

"It's more of a fun event where you just have random partners for the first few games and then you get paired up depending on your standings for the finals," Funk explains.

It was all hands-on deck very early this morning as fire fighters responded to a house fire in Morris.

According to a social media post, members of the Morris Fire Department got the call at 1:05 a.m.

Once on scene, it was determined more help would be needed, and a mutual aid call was sent out to the St. Jean Fire Department.

No other details on the incident are available at this time.

In the last issue we discussed warm and cold clouds, and we learned that most of our local precipitation is produced in cold clouds, which means that most of it starts off as snow, even in the summer.

This week we are going to look at the different types of precipitation we experience and examine how each type forms.

Next on our list of precipitation types is sleet or ice pellets.

This form of precipitation is created when raindrops freeze in the air before they reach the ground.