Strong thunderstorms throughout Northern Manitoba on Aug. 8 resulted in numerous overlapping power outages in the Thompson area from the afternoon to late evening as well as vehicle- and property-damaging hail in the Paint Lake area.
Monday’s storm activity included a series of thunder and lightning events throughout central and Northern Manitoba, with the most significant storms occurring in the Thompson, Paint Lake and Grand Rapids areas, says Natalie Hasell, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, which received reports after the storms of egg-sized hail, which is associated with a severe thunderstorm.
“Hail is part of every thunderstorm,” she said.
Manitoba Hydro says, at the peak of the power outages, up to 120 customers at a time in Thompson were without power, with the last customers having electricity restored by about 10:30 p.m.
The power outages were attributed to high winds by Hydro corporate communications director Scott Powell, who characterized the outages as “decentralized,” which means they resulted from several distinct events, which could include tree lines contacting power lines or power lines contacting each other.
“They weren’t all off the same feeder,” he said.
Powell couldn’t confirm reports of lighting striking a power pole in the Thompson area around the time of the first power outages but said that, if it did, it would have been a secondary cause of power outages rather than a primary one.
Out at Paint Lake, Chelsea Dawn took photos of hailstones about three inches across, which she posted in the Thompson Talk Facebook group.
“The storm was pretty intense and sudden,” said Dawn. “My family was definitely a bit shaken up. There was lots of stuff flying around and then the sudden large hail started falling. When we saw the size of it we were in amazement of how large it was because we’ve never seen anything like it.”
Two of her family’s vehicles and some other items on their property were damaged by the hail, said Dawn, who was born in Thompson and has lived here all her life.
“I definitely never experienced anything like this here,” Dawn told the Thompson Citizen.
Hasell couldn’t confirm whether or not hail of this size is more unusual in the north compared to the southern parts of Manitoba, but said thunderstorms and severe thunderstorms are common in Northern Manitoba. Part of the reason there may be fewer observations of hail large enough to damage vehicles could be the fairly sparse population in the north and the distance between weather observation stations, which makes hail falling in areas where it isn’t observed or recorded more likely. It could also be a case of people being unaware that they can report such weather events to Environment Canada.
Although they don’t seem small when you’re in the middle of them, thunderstorms are relatively compact weather events, Hasell said, which can affect one part of a community and leave another nearby part untouched. Hail that occurs within thunderstorms is generally around the edges of the updraft, where air is pushing upwards, and covers an even smaller area.
“The hail swathe associated to a storm is relatively narrow,” she said.
The stronger a thunderstorm is, the stronger its updraft, which can keep ice crystals suspended up higher and for longer, giving them more opportunity to bump into other ice crystals or water droplets and increase in size.
“They can grow to be really quite large,” said Hasell. “The stronger the updraft, the larger the hail.”
