DRYDEN – July 19 saw massive showers in the North. The Lake of the Woods area between Kenora and Dryden saw 100 millimetres of rain, 50 millimetres fell within an hour.
“We had a lot of moisture in the atmosphere yesterday in Northwestern Ontario and that moisture got converted into lots and lots of rainfall for around Lake of the Woods, Kenora, eastward towards the Dryden area,” said Geoff Coulson, Meteorologist.
Coulson explained that Environment Canada has an observation site near Kenora and from what they witnessed during yesterday’s rainfall, he said, “the numbers are pretty incredible.”
In the short span of an hour, 79.3 millimetres of rain hit the Dryden area causing streets to overflow with rainwater. 66 millimetres of that total fell between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
“So, lots of rain falling in a short period of time. Stormwater management systems can’t cope. We have problems with roads, infrastructure, homes getting flooded in some cases, streets being flooded,” said Coulson. “Unfortunately, that was the case as we’ve seen in some of these areas.”
A couple of factors contributed to the heavy amount of rain. During the morning, a warm front was blanketing the area from Lake of the Wood eastward to the Dryden area. Combined with the forecasted thunderstorms in the area and a low-pressure system that moved in from down south causing a more intense stream of showers beginning in the late afternoon on July 19.
“When we look at these totals, we talked about a little over 100 millimetres in some areas. When I looked at normal July rainfall for places like Kenora and Dryden, that’s about 100 millimetres. So, their normal for the whole month is about 103 millimetres. Some areas got a whole month of rain just in that one day,” Coulson explained.
The good news is that the rest of the week is looking sunny for the Dryden area; however, more rain is expected over the weekend according to Environment Canada.
