Abundance of Rain Causes Problems

After a dry start to the spring, the city seems to have more rain than it can handle after last night's thundershower. Besides the abundance of rain, last night's severe thunderstorm caused a variety of problems around the city.

A power outage affected much of the west part of Weyburn quickly after the rain and thunder began around 5 p.m. As the rain began to fall in sheets, the Government Road main drain began to take on more water than it could handle, flooding many streets. This caused the City to temporarily close streets, including a section of Railway Avenue between 11th and Sixth Streets, Douglas Road between 18th and 16th Streets, and Ash Drive. There was also a powerline fire reported on Ash Drive, which Weyburn Fire Rescue attended. The City went to work setting up pumps to redirect the water and it eventually subsided, but not before a few houses suffered some water damage.

Environment Canada reporting 5.7 cm of rain falling by midnight, however, a gentle rain continued to fall throughout the early morning hours. It was a record breaker for Weyburn with 56.8 mm officially reported for June 1 and the previous record being 15.4 mm in 2000.

The rain is expected to subside by noon today, dropping another 10 mm. The wind will be the main culprit today, however, gusting up to 70 km per hour.