Some parts of the Parkland got lucky over the weekend, seeing minimal rainfall and little to no hail. Minitonas was not one of them.
According to Environment Canada Meteorologist Matt Loney, Minitonas saw 2 full months worth of rainfall over a couple hour span.
"Minitonas had a massive flooding event, we had 147.9mm [of rain] measured at the provincial station, and that amounts to about 6 inches of rain in a very very short time, so that's essentially June and July's rainfall totals falling all at once...it just goes to show you that it's a very significant event, I would say it's probably at least a 1 in 50 year event," said Loney.
Storms as heavy as this weekend across Saskatchewan and Manitoba are not at all common. Loney said there were quite a few factors that all combined to make these storms as strong as they were, including some warm air influence from a place you wouldn't really expect.
"The fact that this storm was slow moving, or forming on itself, that's one big factor for the amount of rain that was able to fall in such a short time...we did have an active jet stream bringing up a flood of warm, moist air from the southwest, which was actually able to tap a little bit of the Gulf of Mexico, some of the moisture down there, so that moisture is being entrained into the system," said Loney.
That warm air from down south, combined with a cold front from the west, caused a lot of the winds and dark skies over the weekend, and everyone knows what can happen when hot and cold air mix in just the right way. There were several tornado watches and warnings across the Prairies over the weekend.
Looking at the week ahead, Loney said Environment Canada isn't calling for any more severe storms just yet. Looking back at the weekend, he stressed the fact that this storm was a once in a while event.
"I think we're going to stabilize quite a bit more as this week goes on, we've got a decent day on tap once this cloud cover completely clears out...this event in particular was striking, and the fact that it was quite unusual to get that much rain in such a short time," said Loney.
Click here to see Environment Canada's forecast for the rest of this week.
