A large thunderstorm that made its way across Southern Alberta on Wednesday left behind power outages and road closures.
Environment Canada issued a severe thunderstorm warning for areas in southeast Alberta for a storm that was in the Brooks area around 5:30 p.m. and continued moving east towards the Saskatchewan border.
The weather agency warned the storm was capable of bringing damaging winds, baseball-sized hail, and heavy rain.
Heather Rombough with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) says it was one of the strongest storms she’s seen.
“I can’t say that I’ve ever seen an actual reported wind gust from one of our stations that was that strong,” she told 660 NewsRadio. “Just straight line winds from a strong super cell thunderstorm that moved across the entire province and into Saskatchewan.”
Fortis Alberta reports outages for thousands of customers in the areas around Vulcan County and Brooks. Residents are encouraged to visit the Fortis outage map for the latest updates.
AltaLink said Thursday it was still working to clean up downed transmission lines.
Premier Danielle Smith, who is also the MLA for Brooks-Medicine Hat, extended her sympathies to residents of the area who are still without power.
“I hope everyone is safe and sound,” she wrote on social media. “I’ve already seen reports of significant damage, but I’m confident that friends and neighbours will come together to support one another and lend a helping hand.”
Rombough says the Northern Tornado Project is sending experts to the area to investigate.
Mounties say Highway 36 is shut down at Highway 1. Motorists are advised to take Highway 876 north and Highway 544 west to get around the closure.
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