Final huff from Mother Nature
Seagulls cruise on the Clearbrook Park soccer field on Tuesday morning following another night of heavy rain and high winds.
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
Updated: November 18, 2009 3:54 PM
Grant GRANGER
Abbotsford News
Mother Nature pounded the Valley hard early this week, with the three-day storm expected to ease after a final round of high wind last night.
After Abbotsford was hit by 20 power outages on Monday, overnight winds and rain caused another 25 on Tuesday.
BC Hydro said at the peak, between 3 and 4 a.m. Tuesday, there were 14,231 customers without power in Abbotsford.The outages ranged from two to 19 hours. Most were repaired by 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Mennonite Educational Institute’s secondary, middle and elementary schools on Clearbrook Road and Downes Road, and Cornerstone Christian school on Gladwin Road, were closed Tuesday because of power failures.
The winds began to hit Abbotsford hard just before 11 p.m. Monday night when the airport recorded southerlies at 65 km/h with gusts up to 84 km/h. The heavy winds and rain continued for more than three hours.
There were no outages Wednesday morning, but Hydro was bracing for another round of trouble with winds forecast to be up to 70 km/h last night.
Environment Canada is predicting rain will continue until next week but is not calling for high winds.
A flood watch issued Saturday for parts of Metro Vancouver has ended.
The subtropical storm wasn’t a true Pineapple Express because it didn’t originate as far south in the Pacific as Hawaii. Nor did it hit the Lower Mainland as hard as had been forecast or as similar storms in the past.
Rainfall for the storm from Saturday to Tuesday ranged from a low of 46.4 millimetres that fell on White Rock to between 80 and 90 mm on the North Shore.
Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist said it was a “very vigorous” system with lots of moisture, but nothing extraordinary. A storm system of this size or bigger typically hits southern B.C. at least two or three times annually between November and January.
