People in southern Manitoba endured a nerve-racking several hours on Tuesday, as a series of tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings swept through the region, from afternoon late into the evening.
The tornado warnings began around 4 p.m. CT, and continued beyond 11 p.m. CT, with alerts issued for several areas, including Winnipeg on two separate occasions hours apart.
In Winnipeg, the storm darkened skies, bringing hail and heavy rains that filled underpasses and flooded basements.
“That storm has essentially just been building itself as it slowly moves to the northeast,” Alysa Pederson, warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, told CBC News in an interview shortly after 7 p.m.
Pederson said the weather agency received two reports of tornadoes Tuesday, one near the town of Morris and another in the Ste. Anne area, but they were unconfirmed.
Funnel clouds are seen near the rural municipality of De Salaberry, which was under a tornado warning Tuesday afternoon. (Chris Gareau/CBC)
The first warnings were issued in the afternoon for the communities of Grunthal, St. Malo and St-Pierre-Jolys.
Those warnings were replaced by tornado warnings for Ste. Anne and La Coulee at 5:24 p.m.
Most of southern Manitoba was also under an orange tornado watch as a “large linear thunderstorm complex” was expected to move in from Saskatchewan, the weather agency said.
The watch, issued just before 2 p.m., covered most of the province’s southwestern corner, stretching up to the western shore of Lake Manitoba and part of the Interlake region. It also included the cities of Brandon, Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie, Steinbach, Morden and Winkler.
(Submitted by Cameron Crump)
Severe thunderstorms that could produce tornadoes were possible in the weather conditions in those areas, the weather agency said. Strong winds, large hail and heavy rain were also possible.
The most current information can be found on Environment Canada’s weather alerts page.