Estevan gets heavy rain, but July record remains intact

The City of Estevan has been soaked by Mother Nature this week.

Environment Canada issued a heavy rainfall warning for the city on Tuesday. Environment Canada meteorologist Terri Lang said the city received 72.5 millimetres of rain, the bulk of it falling over 18 hours starting on Tuesday morning.

“It’s certainly a lot of rain. Luckily it fell over a longer period of time and not over a couple hours because that’s when the real issues start happening,” Lang said.

While Lang hadn’t heard of any flooding directly from the city, Discover Estevan reported the storm caused some minor damage. But the city’s drainage system worked very well, according to the city’s roads and drainage manager.

“We’re fortunate in Estevan to have that valley system on the west side of the city to take away that fast-moving stormwater,” Norm Mack told Discover Estevan. “Then on the east side, we have the Shirley Creek project which was constructed in the ’90s.

“So between the two drainage systems, it really empties our city out quick.”

Lang said the rain was mostly confined to the Estevan area.

“There was an area of low pressure over Montana with a lot of embedded thundershowers and that’s what gave that localized heavy rain,” she said.

“I think those areas were somewhat drier than the areas to the west of them … so I think the rain was relatively welcome just because they needed the rain. But there could have been some people who didn’t appreciate it in that small of a time period.”

Weyburn got only 0.2 mm of rain, she said, while Broadview was left dry.

Despite the amount of moisture, Lang said Estevan’s one-day rainfall record for July still stands — 91.7 mm on July 11, 1974.