The last day of August was marked by Regina getting hit with a storm that produced golf ball to pea sized hail throughout the city.
The system bringing rain and hail hit shortly around 7 p.m.
A tornado warning had been out for the Moose Jaw, Pense and Rouleau areas, but no such warning was issued for Regina. A severe thunderstorm watch was in effect for much of the province Tuesday afternoon and evening.
Impressive storm structure NW of Rouleau #skstorm 647PM
Strong inflow! pic.twitter.com/M73VpbFvsk
— Kyle Brittain (@KyleTWN) September 1, 2021
Hail covers a street in northwest Regina after a storm on August 31.
Picture: Perry Nyhus
Environment Canada Meteorologist Chris Stammers says the tornado warnings were issued after funnel clouds were spotted and rotation in the radar was observed.
“No touch downs that we’re aware of yet, I don’t think that will change, but there’s always a slight chance when we get more data coming in from spotters, that could be changed at a later time,” Stammers said. “That tornado warning was ended as the storm came into Regina.”
Stammers says the north end of the city saw the largest hail in size.
“They got golf balls — so about one-inch diameter hail – and then it looked like further south, we just saw higher accumulations of smaller hail, which can still do a lot of damage, especially blocking storm drains and then causing some localized flooding,” Stammers said. “Just because some areas didn’t get the big hail still doesn’t mean there still wasn’t damage further south.”
Stammers says this is yet another challenge for farmers after drought for the entire summer, and now hail flattening crops that did manage to grow.
“The good thing about hail is that it’s fairly localized, so not a super widespread event like the drought situation was for sure,” Stammers said. “The winds were quite severe with this too, which made things worse, causing that wind-driven hail.
“The Regina Airport has gusts to 93 km/h when that storm came through.”
There’s a chance of more thunderstorms on Wednesday, but Stammers says most of the activity will happen east of the city.
