A break from severe weather!

It's been a very active few days over southern MB, with some of the most severe weather we've seen in years. It started off with a couple of strong nightime thunderstorms that rolled through Winnipeg last Sunday and Tuesday nights giving heavy rain and strong winds. Then Friday and Saturday saw two major tornado events, one that produced an F4 tornado in Elie that caused severe damage, and then at least 3 tornadoes over southwest MB Saturday night, two rated at least F3, one with a damage path almost 2 km wide. Friday night through Sunday night also produced severe thunderstorms across southern MB each night.. with severe winds causing major damage in the Whiteshell Saturday night, and large hail and heavy rain in other places (including over 100 mm near the Peace Gardens Saturday night!) Winnipeg was hit with two severe storms Saturday night.. one that brought 107 km/h wind gusts in the evening that caused tree damage in parts of the city, and one that produced twoonie to hardball size hail in the north end overnight. The stormy weather made a final appearance last night with heavy rains south and east of Winnipeg.

The stormy week has brought my monthly rainfall total in Charleswood up to 118 mm, almost 30 mm above average for June. In northern and eastern areas of the city, monthly rainfall totals are over 150 mm. What a difference compared to last year. To put it in perspective, consider that I've recorded more rain in June this year than I recorded all of last May, June, July and August combined last year (total 114 mm)

The good news is that we won't be getting any more severe storms or heavy rain for awhile.. at least the rest of this week. Drier and cooler air has spread in from the west, which will stabilize things and give us a much needed period of dry weather. After a cool day tomorrow with a chance of some light showers, sunny and warmer weather will move in for Thursday through Saturday. The next chance for showers or thunderstorms will be by Sunday as a low pressure trough moves in from the west. Until then, enjoy the nice quiet weather!

MB Tornado footage

Here are a couple of video clips showing tornadoes from southern MB the past two evenings. The first clip is the F4 Elie tornado of June 22nd from start to finish. The second clip shows a huge tornado over southwest MB last evening that touched down near Pipestone and travelled southeast, south of Hartney and north of Boissevain and Killarney. This thing was an absolute monster that luckily stayed mainly over open fields. West of Hartney, the damage path was 1.8 km wide! If it had struck a community, we would have had a second straight F4 on our hands (maybe even an F5) which would have caused a lot of damage, and probably a lot of fatalities. Scary stuff..

Elie tornado from start to finish - June 22, 2007



Monster tornado near Pipestone, MB - June 23, 2007

Elie tornado rated as F5.. more tornadoes tonight

EC's storm investigation team has assessed that the Elie tornado (shown in image here) was an F5 strength on the Fujita tornado intensity scale. The rating was based on the fact that some homes were completely swept off their foundation, a classic signature of F4 or F5 tornadoes. This makes it Manitoba's strongest tornado on record, and the first F5 tornado officially recorded in Canada.

And the violent weather isn't over.. severe thunderstorms have again erupted over southwest Manitoba this evening, with an intense supercell north of Pipestone producing a confirmed tornado on the ground as of 7 pm. (no indication of damage yet)

Tornado hits just west of Winnipeg in Elie.. damage reported

June 22.... A tornado hit just west of Winnipeg around 6:30 pm Friday evening in Elie, MB on the TransCanada between Winnipeg and Portage. Significant damage was reported including damage to several buildings as well as a tractor trailer being thrown into a field off Hwy 1. No reports so far of deaths or injuries. The slow moving tornado was on the ground for at least 30 minutes and was extensively photographed by numerous eyewitnesses along the TransCanada along with some video footage. These dramatic photos of the Elie tornado were taken by Wayne Hanna (left image) and Justin Hobson (right image). For additional photos and full story, see today's Winnipeg Free Press.

Strong thunderstorm rolls through Winnipeg.. again..

Nice little thunderstorm squall just went through Winnipeg between 10 and 10:30 pm this evening giving quite a light show, torrential rain and strong wind gusts. Winds gusted to 32 knots (60 km/h) at the airport, but doppler radar (right image) indicated wind gusts up to 50 kt (90 km/h) possible just southwest of the city (such as Oak Bluff and Sanford areas) I recorded 7 mm of rain in about 10 minutes, with a peak rainfall intensity of 110.7 mm/hr at 10:15 pm. Just what we didn't need.. more rain!