Thunderstorm dumps rain, creates tornadoes

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This article was published 29/06/2023 (1043 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A vicious thunderstorm swept through Brandon late Tuesday afternoon, temporarily flooding streets and causing a power outage.

A day later, much of southern Manitoba and the Interlake — including Brandon, Neepawa, Melita, Killarney and Boissevain — was placed under tornado watches and warnings.

Elsewhere in Westman, Environment and Climate Change Canada confirmed one tornado touched down near Arden, west of Gladstone, on Tuesday.

A second possible tornado from Tuesday is being investigated in Franklin, approximately 18 kilometres east of Minnedosa.

Environment Canada’s weather station at Brandon Municipal Airport only recorded 4.3 millimetres of rain on Tuesday, but warning preparedness meteorologist Natalie Hasell told the Sun by phone that radar imagery indicates the worst of the storm hit the city proper.

She said she wouldn’t be surprised if more than 100 millimetres of rain had fallen on parts of the city. Elsewhere in Westman, she said a farmer in MacGregor had reported 4.5 inches (114 millimetres) of water falling on his property.

Reports were also received of golf ball-sized hail in Neepawa, MacGregor and near Fork River.

“If you have a storm that could generate a tornado, it has a strong updraft,” she said. “The stronger the updraft, the more likely the hail has time to sit in the storm and grow.”

Hasell warned that weather conditions forecast for Wednesday could possibly lead to the creation of more tornadoes.

On social media, Brandon residents posted photos of water spraying out of drains because of dislodged manholes, vehicles immersed in water and malfunctioning traffic lights.

The City of Brandon sent out a warning Tuesday evening asking motorists not to drive down flooded streets or to play in flooded ditches and ponds due to safety reasons.

Several spray parks and the Kinsmen Pool were closed during the storm and Tuesday’s Music in the Park performance was cancelled.

On Wednesday, the city’s general manager of operations, Patrick Pulak, said there hadn’t been any reports of serious damage from the storm, but that could change as staff continue to work on cleaning up and as reports from residents come in.

“It’s not about the amount of rain we get, it’s always about the intensity,” Pulak said Wednesday. “Certainly last night would qualify as one of those more intensive storms that we’ve received.”

He said some of the worst-hit areas were on Richmond Avenue near the 1900 block, Sycamore Drive, Lyndale Drive, various parts of Victoria Avenue, the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Kirkcaldy Drive and some bays off of Pacific Avenue.

Though the storm wasn’t as bad as the one-in-1,000-year event in 2020, he said incidents like these are ones the city tries to learn from.

While the oft-troubled drainage ditch north of Willowdale Crescent filled up to the point where water could no longer flow into it in 2020, Pulak said there were no issues with obstructions on Tuesday.

If anyone needs to report issues relating to drainage from this storm or a future weather event, Pulak recommends they call 204-729-2285, which is monitored 24-7.

One resident on Sycamore Drive, Kaylie Carberry, posted a video on Facebook of her neighbours canoeing down her flooded street. She said they were trying to access a storm drain that had been blocked.

Eventually, they gave up on the canoe and ended up wading into the water to get the job done. She said once that happened, the lake that had formed on the street drained within 15 to 20 minutes.

One neighbour had water get into their garage, while water reached the halfway point of some trees on the street. Carberry estimates there was something like two feet of water on the road before it drained.

By email, Manitoba Hydro media relations officer Bruce Owen said there was a single major outage in the Brandon area that knocked out power to 1,700 customers in Douglas, Forrest, Baragar, the north end of Brandon, Kemnay, Alexander and Oak Lake, including Oak Lake Beach.

According to Owen, most customers had their power restored by 6:30 p.m., with the final 200 customers getting theirs back later in the evening.

“The storm that rolled through caused extensive damage,” Owen wrote. “Most of it was in the Alexander area.”

That included a broken pole near Alexander that had to be replaced, trees in the Alexander area falling down on power lines, a broken pad-mounted transformer in Alexander, broken electrical equipment near Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School and high winds causing power lines to touch, causing some equipment to blow.

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