Storms wallop region with high winds, hail, dust

A series of storms that tore through a wide swath of southern Manitoba on Tuesday evening brought high winds and some tornado activity, hail and more rain.

But in the Brandon area, the storms came with a mouthful of dust.

The storms toppled trees in Brandon, damaging at least one home and blocking the intersection of 18th Street and Rosser Avenue. A trampoline blown onto 34th Street had to be moved to the boulevard.

While watching television in his home on the first block of Whitehead Crescent, Ron Richardson said he heard a tree land on his house at around 9:30 p.m.

He said there was “good damage” to the roof of his home and he had to cut a few branches to get his vehicle out of his driveway Wednesday morning.

Several thunderstorms rolled through Westman starting at 6 p.m. and letting up at around 10 p.m., Brian Proctor, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, told the Sun on Wednesday.

Brandon and surrounding communities saw “very little” by way of precipitation throughout the storms, but the wind was fairly vigorous, the meteorologist said. Brandon got 0.7 millimetres of precipitation, while there were 0.4 mm in Melita and 4.6 mm in Miniota, Proctor said.

Wind gusts in Brandon peaked at about 87 kilometres per hour at 9 p.m., and Brandon Municipal Airport, which sits just north of the city, reported peak wind speeds of 100 km/h shortly after 9 p.m., he said.

Without much precipitation, the heavy winds upended dust and soil, creating a dust storm that swept through Brandon, Proctor said, adding that Brandon and Treherne saw some of the lowest visibility, which was at its worst around 9 p.m. when the wind speeds peaked.

“It’s a bit … rare, to be perfectly honest,” Proctor said of the dust storm, which was “on and off” between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. in the region. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if the dust storm affected other communities between Brandon and Treherne.

“If we had more precipitation, we likely would not have seen that dust storm come into the city,” he said.

Proctor said that while there have been multiple reports of funnel clouds and possible tornadoes throughout Parkland and the Red River Valley, they haven’t been verified. As of Wednesday afternoon, he said one tornado touchdown had been confirmed near Ste. Anne.

Manitoba Hydro saw “significant impacts” to its system in Winnipeg, Eastman regions, southern Interlake and south-central Manitoba, along with smaller impacts in Westman and Parkland regions, Scott Powell, the director or corporate communications and marketing for Manitoba Hydro, said in an email to the Sun.

During the peak of Tuesday’s storm, Powell said roughly 3,200 customers in the Brandon and Westman region were without power. As of 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, around 1,200 customers were still without electrical service, he said.

Approximately 30,000 customers across the province were without electricity as of noon on Wednesday, with 20,000 located in Winnipeg.

“High winds caused significant issues with trees falling on power lines while also bringing down lines and damaging poles. Lighting strikes causing trips were also a cause in some areas, but most outages were caused by trees and high winds,” Powell said.

A “trip” is when a piece of electrical equipment is automatically disconnected from the power grid.

While not unheard of, he said it’s rare to see power outages of this scale in the province.

“This was, however, one of the largest and most severe summer storms we have seen in many years due to both the scale and severity of the event.”

Proctor said most of Environment Canada’s efforts have been focused on other severe weather events across southern Manitoba. Stonewall saw more than 200 mm of precipitation and portions of Winnipeg saw more than 120 mm, he said.

Environment Canada reportedly said areas south of the city were hit with hailstones the size of baseballs, tennis balls and golf balls.

Winnipeg was also briefly under a red warning for a tornado on Tuesday evening, but it was cancelled a short while later.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com