Tornado confirmed in River Heights

A tornado touched down during a wild storm in River Heights Sunday night.

The Northern Tornadoes Project confirmed the tornado hit at 6:30 p.m. and reached a maximum speed of 155 km/h, travelled about two kilometres and was 150 metres wide. It was classified as an EF1 tornado by the tornadoes project, or a tornado that reaches wind speeds of 135-175 km/h.

The storm brought down power lines, took down trees and caused property damage in a chunk of south River Heights and several other areas of the city Sunday evening.

Manitoba Hydro spokesman Peter Chura said power was restored to customers by about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Hydro was still working to restore a stretch of street lights in the area.

Sunday’s storm brought heavy damage to a small, localized area, creating access challenges for the heavy machinery needed to make repairs, Chura said.

“This was a pretty unique situation in particular,” he said. “We have employees with more than 30 years’ experience repairing damage and restoring power from storms that hadn’t seen anything like this, where so much damage was done in such a confined area.

“There were certainly lessons learned for how to deal with that specific situation.”

The Northern Tornadoes Project, based out of Western University, uses drone surveying, satellite imagery and on-the-ground investigations to record tornadoes in Canada.

The group confirmed a second tornado touched down Sunday in Bénard, a small community in the Rural Municipality of Cartier.

This is Winnipeg’s second tornado this summer, with the first hitting the Whyte Ridge area in June.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca