The main story was the hail over central, eastern and northern parts of the city with nickel to marble sized hail reported in some areas (a storm that dumps nickel sized hail or larger is considered a severe thunderstorm here in Canada). The hail reportedly caused damage mainly to plants. Flowers and bushes at the Jardin St. Léon Garden Centre on St. Mary's Road were badly damaged according to CBC.
The storm put an end to a 289 day streak without thunderstorms in the city, the longest period on record without a thunderstorm. This was 3 days longer than the previous record.
It is also the second latest start to the thunderstorm season in Winnipeg. Second only to 1958 which didn't see its first storm until June 28.
Nickel sized hail and wind gusts over 60 km/h were reported at the airport around 4:30 pm. A look at the conditions seen at the airport at 4:32 pm can be seen in the metar snapshot below... I decoded some of the important stuff for you:
As usual with isolated events such as yesterday, rainfall amounts varied greatly across southern Manitoba and even within Winnipeg. Hard to believe if you were downtown, but parts of the southern and western ends of city didn't get a drop of rain. 9.6 mm fell at The Forks and 4.6 mm in western Transcona whereas parts of River Park South only had a trace and nothing fell in Charleswood. Here's some rain totals for the entire day yesterday across southern Manitoba from highest to lowest:
Here's a collection of pictures I took around south St Vital of the storm... (Spot the hail shaft!)
Julien,
ReplyDeletedo you know of there was a tornado reported near Portage yesterday? According to my cashier at Safeway today there was one.
I haven't heard of any tornado reports anywhere in Manitoba yesterday. He/she might have thought a tornado warning meant there was a tornado occuring, but in this case it was due to rotation detected on radar which could have produced one, but none were reported. If I hear anything from Environment Canada I'll let you know.
DeleteYour right about that Julien. some people who aren't as interested in the weather as me or you might think a tornado warning meant there was a tornado reported
DeleteJulien,
ReplyDeleteTake a look at this weird looking radar!
http://weather.gc.ca/radar/index_e.html?id=WSO
Do you think it is a mistake?
That radar has been offline at times today, must be issues with it. The cells seen on the left and top also seem to be overdone. There are storms there, but not quite as heavy as is shown.
DeleteJJ changing topics....What are the chances of Winnipeg getting something on Friday? Would there be a better chance Friday night? Any MCS chances with the system moving East overnight? Thank's let me know....
ReplyDeleteCertainly a possibility of some sort of mcs forming out of the convection which forms to our west... Rainfall would be a big threat because moisture is expected to be extremely abundant.
DeleteNot too sure what to think about Friday's potential right now. NAM is now keeping much of the lift and instability south of the border. In addition, it just looks overall very cloudy on Friday with lots of debris cloud.
ReplyDeleteHowever, with such strong dynamics and abundant moisture there will most likely be widespread rains and embedded thunderstorms along the low-level jet... which would give us an overall showery, cloudy day with the potential for embedded thunder.
Not calling it off just yet, many things can't be confirmed right now.
Cumulus cloud deck a lot thicker than expected today, so looks rather mostly cloudy for most of the afternoon with temperatures a few degrees cooler than anticipated...
ReplyDeleteJJ, did you see? The threat has now shifted eastwards into South central Manitoba for the Winnipeg region. In fact the SPC has us in a slight risk, with good instability to our west..http://meteocentre.com/models/models.php?mod=nam&map=na&run=00&lang=en head over to look. Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteUpdated the thundercast..
DeleteBut I do feel there's a good chance at thunderstorms along the front tomorrow... severe risk will be contingent on if we can get sunshine before the front passes. I issued a slight risk of severe storms for south-central Manitoba because most models have us in at east a bit of sun before the afternoon. If we don't get sun though, expect severe risk to be isolated instead.
Storm risk for Winnipeg looks like late afternoon or early evening at this time.
Not mcuh has changed in my thoughts about thunderstorm potential in general for tomorrow. I think there's a good chance for storms in southern Manitoba tomorrow including Winnipeg. Looks like Winnipeg's best shot will be in the evening, earlier rather than later. However, I'm not so confident about severe potential. I'll keep the slight risk for severes west of Winnipeg for now, but I'm leaning more towards isolated severe at this point rather than a widespread severe event.
ReplyDeleteYikes, cloud and lots of it across southern Manitoba along with showers and embedded thunder. Clearing not to be seen until Montana... but cloud cover is moving quite rapidly...
ReplyDeleteI'm not downgrading the thunderstorm risk despite all this cloud. This system is already producing a lot of thunderstorms in western North Dakota and these are producing a lot of lightning. I expect these to continue moving east/northeasward and we'll continue to see regeneration of storms this afternoon along the trough as well in southwestern Manitoba. Some isolated severe storms are possible.. but I've kept the risk at isolated for now, but I'll see how things go and I might reissue the slight risk if necessary. Damaging winds and flooding rains are the main threats. Best risk of storms pushes into RRV/Winnipeg late afternoon and early/mid evening.
ReplyDeleteJJ, why is it that Environment Canada has changed there forecast to swhowers with the risk of a thunderstorm when all around us they are forecasting showers or thunderstorms? I don't seem to agree with it given the areas they have forecasted showers or storms for, it is all around us except for Winnipeg. Thoughts? Are showers or thunderstorms still looking likely?
ReplyDeleteShowers with the potential for thunderstorms is definitely still likely, I'm not downgrading the risk right now.
ReplyDeleteBrandon airport finally reporting its first thunderstorm of the year as of noon. Although the city centre itself already had one storm, the airport which is slightly north of the city had not.
ReplyDelete