A shower of hail descended on Neepawa for about half an hour on Thursday. Miranda Leybourne/ The Brandon Sun
By Miranda Leybourne, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Brandon Sun
July 8, 2023
Hail the size of loonies and marbles hammered Westman late Thursday afternoon in storms that unleashed the ice balls on Neepawa, Rivers, Rapid City and their surrounding areas.
Golfers enjoying 18 holes at the Neepawa Golf & Country Club had to abandon their games and wait out the storm inside the country club buildings, said Landon Cameron, the golf pro at the course.
“We halted play for an hour and then went back out. There was minimal to no damage at all,” Cameron, who shared a photo of hail blanketing the course on social media, told the Sun.
Although the storm did come up suddenly on what was otherwise an ideal summer day, no one was harmed by the hail and there were no reports of damage to cars or golf carts. And despite there being multiple tornado watches and warnings issued for the Neepawa area so far this summer, Cameron said the weather still hasn’t been an issue for the golf course.
Westman residents can expect more unsettled weather, including hail and tornado warnings, as summer continues, says Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Stephen Berg.
“It’s trending upward,” he told the Sun. “Temperatures should be warmer than average for the rest of the summer, and potential humid conditions can cause severe thunderstorms.”
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Last month, hail ranging in size from ping pong balls to softballs fell in Rivers and Oak River as severe thunderstorms passed through the area. El Niño, a weather pattern that is the result of above-average sea-surface temperatures that periodically develop across the east-central equatorial Pacific, is to blame for the hot weather that Westman is experiencing, said Berg.