A snowstorm that blasted through parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba last week forced highway closures and knocked out the power at several rural communities, in some cases for more than 24 hours.
The storm struck on Oct. 5 and dumped up to 30 centimetres of snow in southeastern Saskatchewan while unloading up to 45 cm in parts of southwestern Manitoba.
The snow, coupled with winds gusting over 70 km-h, was not what producers expected to see at this time of year. The storm forced many to begin hauling hay and straw to pastures for their cattle.
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“It’s pretty white out there,” said Baldur, Man., cattle producer Shirley Conibear, the day following the storm. “When you live in Manitoba, you pretty much have to be prepared for anything.”
Conibear had meetings to get to in Winnipeg the day the storm struck. She said driving in her area was treacherous until she got closer to the city.
“I woke up to driving to Winnipeg on roads that I wasn’t very impressed with.”
Some highways in southwestern Manitoba remained closed until after the normal morning commuting hours on Oct. 6.
The soggy snow coupled with high winds toppled trees and downed power lines, resulting in sporadic power outages in some communities and prolonged outages in others. There were some towns that still did not have electricity restored by the morning after the storm.
“We’ve had difficulties getting to those areas because of the highway closures and just the difficulty of getting there over the snow,” said Manitoba Hydro spokesperson Glenn Schneider.
The highest recorded snowfall in Saskatchewan was at Gainsborough, with 30 cm, according to Environment Canada. In Manitoba, Pilot Mound got the most snowfall with 45 cm reported.
“It was really hard to measure because of the high winds,” said meteorologist Anne-Marie PalFreeman.
Manitoba farmers have experienced a variety of quirky weather this year, including an extreme downpour of rain in early June that damaged crops and roads in western Manitoba. That same month, a wind storm in the Gretna and Letellier areas raged up to 140 km-h, creating a force strong enough to topple 13 empty grain hopper cars off a local rail line. Meanwhile, excess moisture this spring in eastern Manitoba resulted in many acres of cropland being left unseeded.
