Portage, Morden hardest hit by storms

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This article was published 17/06/2020 (2169 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Overnight wind and lightning storms in southern Manitoba left several families without power Wednesday morning, and the extreme weather, including high heat and severe thunderstorms, is expected to continue throughout Wednesday night.

Manitoba Hydro said in a tweet Wednesday morning that Portage la Prairie and Morden were hit hardest by the storm. Damaged poles and toppled trees took out power lines and caused widespread outages throughout the southern part of the province.

Hydro’s outage map showed approximately 1,300 customers were affected by 355 outages as of Wednesday afternoon. Those outages were most concentrated in Norfolk-Treherne and Portage la Prairie. Crews worked throughout the day to restore power to the region.

That work may be for naught, however, as further extreme weather is expected for southern Manitoba Wednesday night.

Environment and Climate Change Canada issued a thunderstorm watch for several communities in the region, including Winnipeg, Victoria Beach, Selkirk, Morden, Portage and Steinbach. The thunderstorms will “rapidly become severe,” and could be upgraded to tornado watch as conditions evolve, the agency noted.

Warning preparedness meteorologist Natalie Hasell said Wednesday that wind speeds could reach as high as 100 to 110 km/h throughout the evening storm. She recommended Manitobans pre-arrange emergency plans, including identifying where they can hunker down in case of extreme weather.

“Take shelter as soon as possible, if you can see lightning or hear thunder you are at risk of being hit,” Hasell said. “I would very much like people to take shelter instead of photos.”

Adding a slight complication to Wednesday’s storm-tracking, several radars throughout the country—including the Woodlands radar near Winnipeg—are in the middle of being upgraded and are not operational. The Woodlands radar will be in the dark until a new system is put online in October, the agency said Wednesday, though an interim radar is in place to help provide some coverage of the area.

The agency said radars will go non-operational from time to time due to power outages or other unanticipated repairs. In the absence of a local radar, meteorologists have access to a number of other tools, including satellites, surface weather stations, computer models and radars from other regions and the United States.

“Radar gives us scans that go through the storms which is information that we do depend on,” Hasell said. “But we do have other tools that are available for the area… we’re not completely blind in this situation.”

Heat warnings are also in effect for Winnipeg and other regions throughout the southern part of the province. The temperature can be expected to reach the low 30s with high humidity pushing the humidex to the upper 30s. Environment Canada warns Manitobans to watch for the effects of heat illness, which can include swelling, dizziness, rash, nausea, cramps, fainting, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

A cold front moving into the province Wednesday night is expected to restore cooler air, lower humidity and more seasonal temperatures for the rest of the week.

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca