15 hours ago
Heavy rains temporarily flood roads in Meadow Lake
Meadow Lake, a community in northern Saskatchewan, was hit by flooding on Saturday afternoon after a series of intense thunderstorms struck the northwestern edge of the province.
According to Brad Vrolijk, a lead forecaster at Environment and Climate Change Canada, while the entire region received between 15 to 30 millimetres of rain on Saturday afternoon, there were some pockets of thunderstorms that produced up to 65 millimetres in a short period of time.
"In these situations you can have really highly variable rainfall accumulations over short distances," said Vrolijk. "While everyone got some rain, how much you got could be quite different depending on where you were."
The storms were the result of a large low pressure system moving east across the border with Alberta. Meadow Lake sits 125 kilometres east of the border, about a three hour drive north of Saskatoon.
The rain caused roadways and parking lots in Meadow Lake to flood, prompting an emergency alert from the City of Meadow Lake urging residents to avoid travel.
"Please stay off the roads unless essential. If driving is necessary, use extreme caution. Proceed slowly through any standing water," it said on Facebook on Saturday afternoon.
Several hours later on Saturday the advisory was updated, saying the situation was no longer dangerous as floodwaters had receded.
While the water was a disturbance, Vroljik said the rains were "welcome" in light of the province's historically dry spring.
"Anytime we can get good accumulating rainfall, so widespread rain, not just localized showers, but when we can get a broad area of rain that covers everywhere, that's always helpful for fire situations," he said.
The number of active wildfires in Saskatchewan has declined in recent days. On Sunday the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency listed 12 active wildfires, of which three were contained. That's down from 23 active fires on June 12.
