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CBC
an hour ago
- Climate
- CBC
Tennis ball-sized hail falls in Radisson, Langham amid Sask.-wide extreme weather
Hail, rain, sheet lightning, extreme winds and even a funnel cloud were reported in Saskatchewan on Wednesday night, leaving people to deal with the damages. Reports of hail compared to eggs, loonies and quarters came from all over the province, but the towns of Radisson and Langham got the worst of it, with hail the size of tennis balls or baseballs cracking multiple car windshields. Other towns hit by hail included North Battleford, Mendham, Blumenthal, Langham, Sceptre and Hague. Crawford Luke, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), said the biggest and most extreme of the storms formed in the late afternoon along the Alberta border. "A lot of people across west-central Saskatchewan would have had at least a good lightning show yesterday, if not some severe weather," Luke said. "Things really got going around 6 p.m. around the Battlefords, especially a really intense storm there. It kind of tracked down the Yellowhead essentially, and maybe just north of Saskatoon, eventually ended up over at Humboldt. We saw quite a few storms in the area." Funnel clouds have been reported near Martinsville and Middle Lake, along with an unconfirmed tornado report from Cudworth. Further south, more storms formed and followed along the Trans-Canada Highway. Gunjan Sinha, a geoscientist and amateur storm chaser, followed the storm from North Battleford, to the Radisson area, all the way to Saskatoon. "That strobe lightning was probably the strongest I've seen since 2010," Sinha said. He said there were up to a thousand bolts in just one minute, and the hail nearly caught up to him and his vehicle. Although Sinha didn't see a tornado himself, he said that with the radar signature, it is likely there were several that were small and short lived. "I was racing before it got to me, but I could hear the hail. So whenever you're in that particular part of the storm, it doesn't really rain a lot. It hails.… I almost got caught. I have some fun dash dash camera footage." Hayley Schwendemann from Neuanlage, Sask., owns Pickle Patch Gardens, a small produce business ravaged by the hail. She said she spent Wednesday evening praying in her basement with her kids. "It went from being kind of dusk to all of a sudden black," Schwendemann said. "It was very windy. You could hear the hail hitting the house like baseball bats.… There was no thunder, but the house was shaking. People always say when there's a tornado it sounds like a train is coming, and it definitely sounded like that outside." "You put a lot of hopes and dreams into that, and then you work hard all summer trying to get it somewhere, and now it's gone," she said. The strongest wind gusts recorded on the day were from North Battleford, according to Luke. There are two ECCC weather stations in the area; one of them recorded 129 km/h, and the other recorded 113 km/h. Elsewhere in the province, Kindersley saw gusts up to 116 km/h, Leader reached 111 km/h and Swift Current hit 93 km/h. Luke said supercells are the type of thunderstorm usually responsible for large hail reports. "When we're seeing tennis ball-sized hail, for example, this was like a monster supercell thunderstorm that was producing that hail, and basically the reason for that is these thunderstorms have a stronger updraft, so they're able to support heavier objects," Luke said.
CTV News
9 hours ago
- Climate
- CTV News
Severe thunderstorm watches issued in several Manitoba communities
Terri Gale has your Thursday morning look at the weather. Manitobans are being urged to stay safe on Thursday morning as the risk of thunderstorms continues. As of 6:30 a.m., Environment and Climate Change Canada has issued severe thunderstorm watches for several communities. According to the weather agency, conditions are favourable for the development of thunderstorms that could produce strong winds, torrential rain, and damaging hail. It notes that storms continue to track east across the province, adding that some of these storms may become severe. ECCC urges Manitobans to stay inside during this severe weather as lightning kills and injures Canadians every year. It warns that thunderstorms may create difficult driving conditions and that rapidly rising water can sweep vehicles away. The weather agency also warns that heavy rain can cause flash flooding; strong winds can damage trees and buildings; and that large hail can cause damage and injury. Rain heading north ECCC has also issued rainfall warnings for parts of northern Manitoba, including Flin Flon, Snow Lake, Thompson and Gillam. It notes that from Thursday morning to Friday night, these areas are expected to receive between 50 to 70 millimetres of rain as a low pressure system brings heavy precipitation and thunderstorms.
CBC
2 days ago
- Climate
- CBC
Why didn't southern Alberta's predicted hot, dry summer materialize?
Environment and Climate Change Canada predicted higher than normal temperatures for all of Canada this summer, including Alberta. Instead, cities got lots of rain — for Calgary, July was the third wettest on record. What changed? The CBC's Helen Pike speaks to a meteorologist to learn more.
