Thursday’s deluge varied widely across region
Just 32 millimetres of rain registered with Environment Canada
WATERLOO REGION — Officially, it’ll go down as nothing more than a good downpour.
That’s what Environment Canada’s observation site at the Region of Waterloo International Airport says about the sandbag slinging, parking-lot surfing deluge that overwhelmed sections of the region late Thursday afternoon.
Just 32 millimetres is the official precipitation count. How can that possibly be? Michael Phelps could have attempted to butterfly across the Fairview Park mall parking lot pool. Perhaps Penny Oleksiak may have freestyled past the front of Reids Chocolate, Candy & Nut Shop in Galt, grabbing a lollipop as she swam by the water-shovelling staff at the sandbagged front door.
Toddlers were using the Zehrs parking lot in Hespeler for a wading pool, while customers had to exit the grocery store through a side door to avoid a couple of soakers.
And yet, this was just a 32millimetre umbrella-opener according to the airport gauges?
“They missed the bulk of the event,” Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson said on Friday. “In these events, we usually notice how localized the heaviest rain was.”
And elsewhere, Coulson says, appears to be where all the aquatic mayhem was on Thursday afternoon between 3:30 and 5:30 p.m.
You’ve got to look to the volunteer observation websites like the CoCoRaHS network and the Weather Underground, Coulson said. Those readings, however trustworthy or accurate, can give a glimpse as to how wildly varying Thursday’s deluge was within the region.
On the eastern part of the Kitchener-Waterloo border, one volunteer counted 54 millimetres. Around Cambridge and to the south, some volunteer rain gauges reported between 80 and 110 millimetres, Coulson said.
“Very, very intense bursts of rain in a relatively small area,” he said. “Really, the local storm water drains and what-have-you just can’t cope with that amount of water.”
So as the water started to bubble up out of the Ainslie Street gutters on Thursday, the staff at Reids, which endured a similar flash flood while the new city hall was being built a decade ago, reached for their stash of just-incase sandbags.
They started moving tables back from their front doors, which are essentially kitty-corner from where a hip-deep Const. Jack Shuttleworth was photographed standing guard at the corner of Dickson and Ainslie during the great flood of 1974.
Ankle-deep water crept about a dozen feet into the confectionery on Thursday before receding quickly just after 5. Manager Brenda Kemp, whose father’s Main Street shoe shop was swamped as the Grand River overflowed its banks 42 years ago, was relieved.
“No chocolate was lost. We’re very lucky that way,” Kemp said on Friday.
“We’re all dried up and bailed out now.”
At Fairview Park mall in Kitchener, according to general manager Lillian Stojanoski, it was also back to business as usual on Friday.
But for an hour on Thursday afternoon, three entrances had to be temporarily closed as mall staff swept into water-pushing action as the sudden rains quickly tapered off.
“We were able to act fast,” Stojanoski said. “By 6 o’clock, we opened the entire mall.”
A section of the Doon Heritage Village behind the main building of the Waterloo Region Museum on Huron Road was closed Friday and expected to be closed Saturday, mainly because of the force of Thursday’s rains damaged some gravel and stone dust pathways.
Repairs will be made and the entire village will be open Sunday, museum manager Tom Reitz said.
The train station and Peter Martin farm stayed open Friday.
Meanwhile, Woolwich Township says the Glasgow Street bridge across the Conestogo River is closed for three to four weeks. Recent heavy rains, prior to Thursday, worsened an erosion problem on one side of the bridge, which needs stabilizing.
More sudden severe rains could be on the way, here or elsewhere in Ontario. Coulson says such storms and the resulting flash-flooding have hit Toronto, Burlington, Windsor, Ottawa and Thunder Bay in recent years.
“They don’t play favourites,” he said.
No chocolate was lost. We’re very lucky that way. We are all dried up and bailed out now. BRENDA KEMP Manager, Reids Chocolate, Candy and Nut Shop