Westman communities battered by Thursday storm

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This article was published 24/06/2022 (1570 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Residents of northern Westman are cleaning up after being battered by hail, rain and severe winds Thursday evening.

Binscarth was “hammered” by storms that night, leaving behind a trail of devastation, said Russell-Binscarth Mayor Cheryl Kingdon-Chartier. She has lived in Binscarth her entire life, and the two storms the region saw this week were among the worst she has ever seen, she said.

Witnessing the ominous clouds encroach on the Binscarth area — which was under a tornado watch — was “very scary,” she said.

“[Thursday] night the hail was huge, lots of hail stones much bigger than golf balls, lots of damage to siding on houses, tree limbs and trees downed,” Kingdon-Chartier said. “I know that there have been lots of crops that are totally ruined. Wheat crops that were about a foot high and now there’s nothing left.”

There have also been reports of flooded basements in Binscarth. Public works and community members were cleaning up tree limbs and pumping water out of basements in an attempt to recover from the storm.

Kingdon-Chartier said she is thankful no human or animal injuries or death were reported.

The storm hit the region as residents were recovering from another major system that battered the region earlier this week. The previous storm especially affected areas of Foxwarren, including part of a house being destroyed and machinery and grain bins turned upside down, she said.

“While everyone is cleaning up, we’re all worrying about what’s the next one going to be.”

Southwestern Manitoba had “all the ingredients” needed for severe weather Thursday: high humidities and heat paired with the “trigger” of a cold front moving through Saskatchewan, said Terri Lang, an Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist.

The storm swept into the province in the late evening, bringing with it a series of thunderstorms and hail.

The system for the most part skimmed over Brandon, but there were reports of damage in Binscarth and Rossburn, including hail the size of baseballs breaking windows and damaging the sides of houses.

“There was speculation that all the damage that was caused in Binscarth was due to a tornado, but I think the consensus is that, because there is no evidence that it was a tornado, that it was probably wind,” Lang said.

Oak Lake and Oakburn reported tennis-ball-sized hail, Waywayseecappo First Nation reported nickel-sized hail, Sandy Lake reported quarter-sized hail and Clear Lake reported toonie-sized hail.

Street flooding and piles of smaller ice chunks were also reported at Shoal Lake.

Wind speeds recorded gusts as high as 89 kilometres per hour in Manitou, 91 km/h in Russell, 96 km/h in Clearwater and 104 km/h in Pilot Mound.

“We haven’t had typical severe weather type of seasons in June, but this is pretty typical of what a June looks like across the Prairies; we just kind of forgot that in those last couple of years [of drought],” Lang said. “Most of the energy for the storms are a little further to the east [Friday]. We should see things start to simmer down over the next couple of days as the atmosphere kind of settles itself out.”

The signs of a major storm passing through Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP) were visible Friday morning, said George Hartlen, Friends of RMNP chief administrative officer. The park saw trees down in the old campground area, along with branches and debris scattered along the townsite.

“It definitely was intense for a very short time period. Compared to storms we’ve had this year, this was the very first one that we’ve had actually considerable hail,” Hartlen said. “It definitely is a mess everywhere right now.”

Cleanup of the storm damages is underway in the park. He does not expect the aftermath of the storm to affect anyone’s weekend visits but asks for patience as crews work to tidy up and get things open as soon as possible.

It has been a difficult spring season in RMNP, he added. The storm comes after trails and highways in the park were closed due to flooding.

“We’ve had a very active spring season for storms and the park is working very diligently to get as many trails open as possible,” Hartlen said. “Events like this just delay things because now we’ve got to pull trail crews off of one area to come and get the campsites cleaned up.”

The Municipality of Killarney-Turtle Mountain missed the worst of the storm but saw lightning in the early hours of Friday morning, said Mayor Merv Tweed.

“We did reasonably well compared to people in communities around us,” Tweed said.

The region saw some rain and the odd tree branch down, he said, but no damage had been reported as of Friday afternoon.

He considers the region fortunate because the majority of storms have missed the region, for the most part, this spring, he said, but high winds have left lasting damages in the community.

“That’s probably our biggest pain, the wind just seems to never stop blowing,” Tweed said. “It dries things out … we can take the heat. We can take the rain. But, the wind with any of those combinations just frustrates people.”

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