Thousands of residents are facing power outages on Thursday morning following a series of severe summer thunderstorms in Ottawa-Gatineau. The storms swept through the region on Wednesday, with one particularly intense storm hitting around 10:30 p.m.
Ann Weatherdon, whose home was damaged by a falling tree near Merivale Road and Meadowlands Drive, described the sudden onset of heavy rain and lightning. Nearby resident Travis Hartley reported hail accumulation of about four to six centimetres on their deck.
Environment Canada’s Peter Kimbell stated that the Ottawa International Airport weather station recorded 22 millimetres of rain within 26 minutes, accompanied by a wind gust of 107 km/h, the strongest since the May 2022 derecho.
Although a severe thunderstorm watch was issued earlier in the day, no warning was issued until the storm was underway. Kimbell acknowledged the delayed warning and mentioned that emergency alerts would have been triggered for tornado warnings or severe thunderstorms with winds exceeding 130 km/h.
By 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, around 6,100 customers were without power in Ottawa and about 5,000 in Gatineau. The outages were concentrated in specific areas in both cities, with Hydro Ottawa and Hydro-Québec reporting peak outages of over 25,000 and 20,000 customers, respectively.
There were minor Hydro One outages reported. Additionally, previous rainstorms have contributed to the high precipitation levels in Ottawa, with July being the rainiest month on record and recent thunderstorms adding to the total rainfall.
