Severe weather engulfed the capital region Monday resulting in mild flooding and minor damages throughout the city.
Nearly 20 mm of precipitation was recorded by Environment Canada, hitting St. Albert’s downtown core the hardest.
“We did have some minor flooding in the downtown area, but there was no damage to downtown businesses,” said Glenn Tompolski, director of Public Works.
He said the flooding was localized around St. Thomas St. and St. Anne St. – a location that typically experiences flooding with heavy rainfall.
J Wagner, owner of the Grapevine Deli on Perron Street, said a small amount of water entered the building through the front door, but added there were no damages.
This was welcome news for the business, which was hard hit by flooding in June 2008, when roughly 60 mm of rain fell in less than one hour.
“It makes us really nervous,” Wagner said. “I actually decided not to keep driving downtown to see if the store is underwater or not.”
She said since the store is the “belly button” of downtown, when a storm rolls in, she just crosses her fingers and hopes for the best.
Tompolski said other than flooding, the city has received a handful of calls about trees being blown over.
Fire chief Ray Richards said the evening storms had little effect on emergency services, with a low volume of calls coming in.
“It was quite unusually quiet,” he said. “We had one call that turned out to be a false alarm and it was probably just from the increased energy at the source from the lightning.”
The number of ambulance calls remained consistent, he said.
“We always peak when the storm really does hit us, but I think it went more to the west and a little bit south,” he said. “We do often get an increased frequency of assistance [calls] when flooding occurs, but fortunately, the city has been really good that way this year, so far.”
Fire services was not called to attend any possible floods resulting from Monday’s storm.
Games were halted at the St. Albert Soccer Association and ongoing construction in the area was forced to pack up earlier than intended, said Melody Martyn, executive director.
Despite the cancelled games, she said there was little interruption and no damage.
Dan Kulak, meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the storm was the result of an upper low-pressure system with warm air moving in from the west.
“The storms came in from the south-southeast and came through the city and St. Albert and after seven o’clock, much of it was over,” Kulak said, adding the first batch of storms rolled through St. Albert at six p.m., lasting roughly 20 minutes.
Residents had 30 minutes to prepare for the next round of storms, which ended at around 7:30 p.m.
“Later on in the evening it was blue sky,” he said.
A tornado watch was in effect for the Edmonton area for most of the day, with a severe thunderstorm warning issued in the evening.
Kulak said four tornado warnings were issued for areas south and southeast of Edmonton, but added there are no confirmed touchdowns.
“It is summer and everybody should have an eye on the sky and know what their forecast is for their area and have a plan in case weather hits their particular location,” Kulak said.
