Heavy rain puts soggy bow on Manitoba spring

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/05/2022 (1602 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If Winnipeg didn’t break its 126-year-old spring precipitation record on the final day of May, it wasn’t for a lack of Mother Nature’s effort.

The meteorological milestone for the total amount of snow and rain from March 1 to May 31 is 325.4 millimetres, which fell in 1896. As of noon Tuesday, Winnipeg was roughly 13 mm away from surpassing it.

“It all depends what happens the rest of the day,” Natalie Hasell, a meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, said at mid-day.

“I’m not saying it will happen, but we are in the realm of possibility… and it isn’t just the rain and the snow before that, it is the wind.”

As of midnight Monday, Winnipeg officially had been hit by a total of 149.1 mm in May. March had brought 14.8 mm and April 118.2 mm, for a total of 282.1 mm.

Then another 30 mm of rain rolled in overnight.

Even if it doesn’t set a record, Hasell said, “the fact is Winnipeg is in a firm second place for wettest meteorological spring.”

The third-wettest is 1911 (234.5 mm), followed by 1878 (231.4 mm).

Across the city, the latest deluge left underpasses under water, streets and sidewalks littered with broken branches and, in some cases, downed trees (a large one fell on Mulvey Avenue).

Winnipeg hasn’t been alone. Little more than a year after drought left some communities rationing water and many farm fields covered with grasshoppers, all across southern Manitoba there is too much water this spring.

Whether it is rivers and creeks swollen and spilling over banks because of above-average snowfall followed by spring runoff and multiple torrential rainstorms or major lakes already at or above normal water levels (and going up even further during high winds) or fields farmers can’t get on to seed because they are saturated, Manitobans are hoping for respite from the water.

Manitoba Hydro said Tuesday overnight rain and winds knocked down power lines across southern Manitoba, with repair crews working throughout the day.

David Driedger, a spokesman for the City of Winnipeg, said the most recent rainstorm had resulted in a total of 95 flooded basements and 111 calls connected to flooded streets and ditches by Tuesday at 9:15 a.m.

Further south in Morden, the city which last year was urging residents to limit water usage because of a local shortage was again issuing a warning. This time, the sewer system had been overwhelmed.

Morden received a whopping 91.2 mm of rain. On Tuesday, officials were imploring residents not to use washing machines and dishwashers, in an effort to reduce wastewater.

“Our crews are working diligently to get the sewer systems to flow quicker —please do your part and conserve water at this time,” a statement from the city said.

Up in the Interlake, Jackie Mitchell was driving on Provincial Road 222, north of Gimli, when she saw it had been partially washed away near the Aurora Treatment Centre. “I’ve never seen anything like this… I just know the ditches are overflowing to the roads in lots of areas.”

Lynn Greenberg, mayor of the RM of Gimli, said the rain Monday added more moisture to an already bad situation.

“Mother Nature has really dumped at us this time,” Greenberg said. “There is a lot of water coming to us from the west and the ditches cannot handle it because the drains are at the maximum now. And now sewers are backing up and basements are being flooded.

“But we just have to deal with it.”

Earlier this week, the province issued strong-wind warnings for the major lakes, saying gusts of up to 80 km/h from the north could drive up water levels.

On the east side of Lake Winnipeg, cottage owner Dave Crabb, who lives just north of Beaconia, said the waves were putting water onto his lawn facing the lake.

“The lake is super angry,” the former president of the Manitoba Association of Cottage Owners said Tuesday. “There’s about 20 to 25 seconds between the breakers hitting the beach. The water level is probably up about four feet. It’s the most I’ve seen in four or five years.”

On the south end of Lake Manitoba, Angie Shindell, general manager of the Portage Regional Recreation Authority, said the Delta Beach campground “fared well.”

“Some erosion and a tree down,” she said. “Debris left behind — but looks like very little damage, if any, to the campers.”

Further up the east side of Lake Manitoba, James Romanow was capturing video of waves crashing into the shoreline in the cottage community of Twin Lakes Beach.

“There are some properties where the waves were going over the shore and the water then goes to the road and into the swamp,” Romanow said.

“We’ve had a lot of rain here, 108 mm for the month of May and 27 mm of rain (Monday) — it was non-stop. And while the lake was almost half a foot below its operating level in January, now we’re at the midpoint because water is coming in and can’t get out fast enough.”

Will Jones, president of the Twin Lakes Beach Association, said the province’s long-promised but still not built flood channel to take water out of Lake Manitoba and into Lake Winnipeg would have helped at this time.

“This is not as devastating as what it appears to be, but I don’t want to see it happening,” Jones said. “A lot of people are freaking out about it and probably it is because they still have PTSD from the last flood.

“Without the flood outlet channel, this will continue to happen.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca