Hang on to your umbrella: Edmonton battered with rain, wind
A storm that is expected to bring winds of up to 100 km/h to the Edmonton region battered the city with heavy rain and caused at least three power outages by early Wednesday afternoon.
EPCOR was reporting at least two power outages in west Edmonton and another in the southeast.
The same storm wreaked havoc in B.C. Tuesday night, downing power lines and leaving more than 100,000 homes without power.
It began to hit northern Alberta early Wednesday. Jo-Anne Demers has lived in the Alberta Beach-area for the past 10 years and said she has never seen a storm like this one.
"It's taken out everybody's dock piers ... there's debris all over the place," she said.
"The waves are splashing up hard enough that they're hitting our front windows. This will probably never happen ever again in our lifetime, thank God."
Demers has already called her insurance company about the damage.
CBC meteorologist Johanna Wagstaffe warned that the high winds will be compounded by heavy rains.
"They're isolated cells of rain which could bring localized flooding, and we're also talking snow for high elevations toward the foothills," Wagstaffe said on CBC's Edmonton AM.
The storm brought strong northerly winds that began early Wednesday afternoon. Between 20 and 30 millimetres of rain is expected to fall in some regions, according to an alert from Environment Canada.
Severe weather warnings are in place for a large swath of the province, including Edmonton, St. Albert and Sherwood Park.
"It's going to be a bigger storm over the next few hours as it tightens up east of the Rockies," Wagstaffe said.
Environment Canada is urging caution on local roads, and reminding Albertans to prepare for possible property damage from the battering winds.
"Damage to buildings, such as to roof shingles and windows, may occur," reads an alert from Environment Canada.
"Loose objects may be tossed by the wind and cause injury or damage. Be prepared to adjust your driving with changing road conditions due to high winds." The storm is expected to rumble its way across central parts of the province this morning, and move east to the Saskatchewan border by Wednesday afternoon.
Albertans are being asked to monitor alerts and forecasts issued by Environment Canada until the storm passes.
"This is a pretty complex storm but it's fast moving. That's the good news," Wagstaffe said. "By tomorrow afternoon this should have kicked eastward."
