We've had many rounds of downpours in the last couple days in southern Manitoba. Some of these were in the form of thunderstorms. Although large hail and damaging winds were not a major threat, cold-core funnels were. These types of funnels/tornadoes are typically weaker and more short-lived than their more supercellular cousin. However, when you see one you still should take shelter as they can do some minor damage if they touch down.
One funnel cloud formed just south of Winnipeg on Wednesday and could be seen from the southern suburbs of the city. This funnel cloud eventually touched down just north of Morris and became Manitoba's 4th CONFIRMED tornado of the year so far (note the Pipestone and Hartney tornadoes of July 13 have yet to be confirmed due to the uncertainty about wether or not damage was by straight-line winds). More tornadoes likely touched down but have not been confirmed. No damage was reported with this most recent tornado.
@lovestormsmb took many pictures of the storm and funnel cloud south of Winnipeg on Wednesday which you can
view here. Unfortunately, I was unable to join him on the trip.
Here are the rainfall amounts in Winnipeg July 24-25: (via Cocorahs, Environment Canada, robsobs, Gorilla Weather and my own weather station)
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Neighbourhood
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July 24-25, 2013 rainfall
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Charleswood
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8.4 mm
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Mission Gardens (west Transcona)
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8.9 mm
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Whyte Ridge
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9.8 mm
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Winnipeg Int’l airport
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11.5 mm
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The Forks
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12.4 mm
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River Park South
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15.3 mm
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Pullberry (near St Vital Park)
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16.5 mm
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So far as of this morning, 74.0 mm of rain has fallen at the airport so far this month, which is close to the normal July rainfall of 79.4 mm (estimated 1981-2010 normal). For once, the airport seems to have been the wettest. Just 62.7 mm has fallen in Charleswood and 58.8 mm at my place in south St Vital.
Now let's move on to the thunderstorm stats so far this year! First off, just a reminder that at the end of every year I create a post with stats on the thunderstorm season in Manitoba and severe thunderstorm season in Canada. This year I've decided to give a ''mid''-season update of how the season has looked so far.
Below is a map which shows how many severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado warnings have been issued per province by Environment Canada so far this year up to noon today. However, please note that this does not necessarily give a true reflection of how many tornado and severe thundestorm events there actually have been. The reason for this is because sometimes warnings are issued when storms didn't quite reach severe limits in reality... or warnings were not issued when storms did reach severe limits. However, there is not much I can do to remove this margin of error right now, so I'll content myself with the warnings EC issues for now.
Below is a table which shows the same thing, except for a few select cities instead of provinces:
4 tornadoes have been confirmed by EC so far this year in Manitoba, all of which appear to be EF-0's... but as many as 8 may have touched down (some have not been confirmed).
And finally, there have 11 thunderstorm days at the Winnipeg airport so far this year. By the end of July, we would have normally seen 16-17 thunderstorm days (estimated 1981-2010 normal by me).
A reminder that my Winnipeg forecast and thundercast pages wont be updated today and perhaps tomorrow as I'm not in a good shape at the moment to make them. I will bring them back as soon as things improve.
