Strong afternoon thunderstorm batters Coaticook

Yesterday’s late-afternoon thunderstorm made its presence particularly known in Coaticook, a town that has already had a run-in with the weather this summer.

At around 3:30 Monday afternoon, heavy rain started to fall in the town, located 35 kilometres southeast of Sherbrooke, as well high winds and hail the size of toonies.

The storm lasted for about 15-20 minutes, according to a release issued by the Town of Coaticook yesterday.

The storm caused power outages throughout the town, and electricity was restored later in the day. As of 6 p.m., Hydro-Quebec listed three outages, affecting 401 clients in the Coaticook regional county municipality.

In the Estrie administrative region as a whole, 765 clients were without power as of 6 p.m., including 189 clients in Stanstead and one in Ogden who were still in the dark.

The town’s statement said the storm caused trees and branches to fall throughout the town, and also noted that some sump pumps were not able to absorb all the rain that fell.

Town crews were cutting trees that had blocked roadways and removing branches and leaves that had clogged sewers and catch basins.

Coaticook authories will survey any other damage within the town in the hours and days ahead.

The severe thunderstorm warning that was in effect for most of the Townships had ended by early yesterday evening. The weather forecast for today called for the risk of more afternoon thunderstorms.

Coaticook’s earlier run-in with Mother Nature came on June 9, as a strong overnight rainstorm caused the Coaticook River to overflow its banks.