If you’re in southern Manitoba, you may have noticed a lot of talk about the potential extreme weather Wednesday afternoon and early evening.
Several tornado warnings were issued, and although none touched down, Environment and Climate Change Canada says there were reports of funnel clouds near Dugald and Oakbank, as well as some on the north side of Winnipeg.
Meteorologist Robyn Dyck of Environment and Climate Change Canada told 680 CJOB’s The Start that officials will be looking into tornado reports throughout the day Thursday.
And while the tornado threat didn’t materialize, parts of the region did get hammered with hail.
“We did get some pretty large hail reports — up to golf ball (size) in St. Andrew’s, quarters to loonies in Steinbach, golf balls as well in Gunton, Stonewall got some quarters,” Dyck said.
“Rainfall-wise, it wasn’t a ton — 30 millimetres in Stonewall, 27-ish in Selkirk.”
The wildfire-plagued northern part of the province also received rain, Dyck said, but the storms were spotty enough that the impact on firefighting efforts could be negligible at best.
“Flin Flon, looks like they got about 12 (millimetres) … it’s pretty spotty, that’s the thing with thunderstorms. It’s not a large area of a lot of rain. It may not have even hit the actual fires, so unfortunately this may not have even been enough rain to have a positive impact.”
Dyck said the rain is likely to continue into Thursday, with a risk of thunderstorms in the forecast for Winnipeg, specifically — likely to occur in the evening — while the Westman region could expect rain earlier in the afternoon, with the potential to continue overnight.
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