Severe Thunderstorms Strike Ottawa-Gatineau Again

Thousands of residents are without power on Thursday morning after yet another round of strong summer thunderstorms hit Ottawa-Gatineau.

The storms swept through the region for much of Wednesday afternoon and evening, with a particularly fierce one unleashing rain and wind around 10:30 p. m.

“All of a sudden I could see the rain starting, there was a storm coming, and I looked out our back windows and saw lightning. Then a few seconds later it [went] all white like a snowstorm,” said Ann Weatherdon, whose chimney was destroyed when a tree fell on her home near Merivale Road and Meadowlands Drive.

“It was pretty intense, it was pretty quick,” said Travis Hartley, who lives nearby. “We had about [four to six centimetres] of hail, of ice on our deck in the back.”

About 22 millimetres of rain fell at the Ottawa International Airport weather station in just 26 minutes on Wednesday night, according to Environment Canada’s Peter Kimbell, a warning preparedness meteorologist.

That station recorded a wind gust of 107 km/h at one point, which is the strongest gust measured since the May 2022 derecho.
Willow tree branches are snapped off the trunk at Celebration Park on Central Park Drive on Thursday. (Colson Swinarchin/CBC)

A severe thunderstorm watch was issued early Wednesday afternoon, but no warning came until after the storm had already begun.

“We did not expect the winds, the impact to be so strong.… The warning did come out late,” Kimbell said.

Emergency phone alerts would have been triggered by a tornado warning or red-level severe thunderstorm warning with winds reaching at least 130 km/h, he added.

Outage updates

As of around 2:00 p. m. Thursday, about 6,100 customers were without power in Ottawa and roughly 5,000 were affected in Gatineau.

The outages are mostly located around Woodroffe Avenue and Merivale Road areas north of Hunt Club Road in Ottawa as well as in Aylmer area of Gatineau.

Hydro Ottawa reported that their highest number without power exceeded more than 25,000. Hydro-Québec noted that Outaouais outages peaked at over 20,000 customers.

There aren’t many local Hydro One outages reported.

Homeowners are cleaning up following yet another thunderstorm. Wednesday night’s brief but intense storm brought high winds and heavy rain leaving thousands without power. David Fraser has more.
Severe Thunderstorms Strike Ottawa-Gatineau Again

There was another approximately 24 millimetres of rain during storms on Monday afternoon and evening at that Ottawa airport.

This July became Ottawa’s rainiest month ever recorded with around 282 millimetres thanks largely to that massive storm on July 1 which left many people still anxious whenever heavy rainfall occurs.