Severe thunderstorm watches, warnings end in southern Manitoba on Saturday

Posted on July 13, 2024 by Peggy

Many Manitobans got a stormy start to the weekend, as Environment Canada issued severe thunderstorm watches and warnings Saturday that have since ended.

On Saturday afternoon, a large section of southern Manitoba — ranging from the U.S. border as far north as the Gypsumville area in the Interlake, and from Riding Mountain in the west to just east of the Steinbach area — was under either a thunderstorm warning or watch, according to Environment Canada.

Those warnings were also in place for much of the area north of Winnipeg and into the Interlake, including Selkirk, Teulon, Winnipeg Beach, Victoria Beach and Gimli.

Most of the rest of southern Manitoba — including the Winnipeg region — was under a severe thunderstorm watch, meaning conditions were favourable for a storm to develop, on Saturday afternoon.

Only the farthest western and eastern edges of southern Manitoba were not included in the watches and warnings.

All of the watches and warnings had ended by Saturday night.

On Saturday afternoon, Manitoba Hydro said crews are working to restore power after thunderstorms caused outages earlier in the day.

“In many cases, high winds pushed branches or trees into our lines,” Manitoba Hydro said in a Saturday afternoon post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Anyone who sees a downed power line should stay away and call 911, it says.