Storm swamps southern Manitoba

Quinn Cove was rushing home to Ste. Anne from Winnipeg when she said the sky turned a shade of blue she had never seen.

She caught a glimpse of a massive storm as she drove on the Trans-Canada Highway near the turnoff to Highway 12. The storm triggered weather alerts in several communities in southern Manitoba Tuesday.

“The sky was like a turquoise blue, which I have never seen before. It was very bizarre,” she said.

Cove, who was one of a few people who pulled over to the side of the road to take in the sight, said the storm clouds were in a funnel formation, but she never saw it touch the ground. The system was moving in a circular pattern.

“It was quite large and very jarring,” she said. ‘It was quite the shock.”

Cove said she left work early after receiving the tornado warning for Ste. Anne, as it can take more than an hour to commute, and she spotted the storm after getting caught in intermittent downpours on the way.

“There was zero visibility,” she said. “You couldn’t see out of your front windshield.”

She didn’t see any damage to her home in Ste. Anne, and didn’t witness any along the way, but said there were periods of dark skies, lots of rain and strong wind.

Manitoba Hydro said there were “widespread” power outages across southern Manitoba as a result of the severe weather, with a post on its social media indicating while crews will respond when it’s safe to do so, given the high number of outages, customers “should be prepared for an overnight outage.

Chris Stammers, a meteorologist with the national forecaster, said most of southern Manitoba was walloped by extreme weather on Tuesday afternoon with severe thunderstorms, hail and strong winds widespread, including in Winnipeg.

Environment Canada issued numerous warnings and watches as the extreme weather rolled into Manitoba around 4 p.m. with the lower half of the province under an orange watch for tornadoes and the communities of Ste. Anne and La Coulée under a red warning due to a “severe thunderstorm that is possibly producing a tornado.”

Winnipeg was also briefly under a red warning for a tornado, but it was cancelled a short while later. Stammers said hail was recorded falling in Winnipeg and between 10 to 20 mm of rain was recorded — as precipitation varied at different parts of the city.

“Folks in Winnipeg, we were kind of getting grazed by the storm, and then the storm actually split and part of it went over the west side of the city, where we had some pretty significant hail, but Winnipeg for now, we’re just seeing some heavy rain with smaller hail.”

Stammers said there were areas south of the city that were hit hard; some hailstones were the size of baseballs, tennis balls and golf balls.

“Lots of big hail reports around the city,” he said, as the Winnipeg area has been “under the fire hose.”

No official damage reports were available on Tuesday evening, but Sherri Clemis said she came across debris on the road that snarled traffic on St. James Street near Wellington Avenue.

“We saw ahead of us, the whole side of the building had fallen onto the road,” she said, noting people were trying to clear the road. “There was debris all over.”

“Weaving in and out” to avoid the debris — and any potential damage to the car — Clemis said this is the first time she’s come across damage as a result of what may have been a deluge.

“I got all of these tornado warnings, so I was wondering: ‘Was there something I just missed,” she said, adding she also came across parts of Route 90 that were badly flooded.

“I wasn’t sure if we were even going to get through it,” she said.

Environment Canada said more storms were expected overnight and into Wednesday morning.

Members of the public are encouraged to monitor for extreme weather and to continue following Environment and Climate Change Canada for watches and warnings.

morgan.modjeski@freepress.mb.ca