Heavy rain floods parts of Saskatchewan

Roads were flooded and basements were soaked in towns across Saskatchewan on Monday.

Terri Lang, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the Battlefords area was hit hardest.

"They came in with a whopping 100 millimetres. And that was in about six or seven hours," Lang said.

Other areas also saw heavy rain. Lang says Rosetown got about 46 mm, but based on models she believes the rainfall totals east of Rosetown could have been much higher. 

"We saw on social media that there was somebody who had recorded five inches of rain," Lang said.

According to Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoHRAS), one weather watcher reported 55.1 mm of rain in the Watrous/Manitou areas.   

"We know that there was enough there tho cause localized flooding," Lang said about the rainfall numbers in Watrous/Manitou.

Storm chaser Jenny Hagan was in the Rosetown area during the storm.  

"Spewing over road ways East of Rosetown #skstorm water is half way up the RR sign post," Hagan posted in a tweet.

She noted there was localized flooding in some areas and roads were getting washed out.

Back in the Battlefords, Boyd Wakelin watched the rain start in the morning and continue all day. When it came time to go home, the walk to his vehicle was very soggy.

"Just even walking through the alley to get to my truck, you didn't have any option but to walk through a stream of water coming down the back alley," Wakelin said.

The drive home didn't get any easier.

"There are some areas around town that the water is flowing up over the curbs. Drainage just couldn't keep up,"Wakelin said.

Wakelin said his property didn't get any water damage, but that neighbours weren't so lucky.

"A lot of people have water in their basement and the rain amounted to six to eight inches," Wakelin said.

Ash Alam is the chief administrative officer for the town of Battleford. He said the area hardest hit in the city was West Park.

"Driveways were washed off. Some of the roads are very bad," Alam said.

Alam said streets flooded quickly and people needed to be rescued from their vehicles. He said areas around the schools were also flooded, but look better today.

Alam said the city opened a new wastewater treatment facility last month and that it handled the influx of rain water perfectly.

Lang said the reason the rain was so intense was a line of of thunderstorms moving in from Montana.

"The thunderstorms sort of kept traveling over the same area again and again and again," Lang said.

Those storms prompted Environment Canada to issue rainfall warnings early Monday morning.

As of Tuesday morning, rainfall warnings cover parts of central and northern Saskatchewan stretching from Melfort through Prince Albert National Park, up to La Ronge, and over to Meadow Lake and Buffalo Narrows. 

Lang said the same weather system is locked on the province, and as the low spins the rain and thunderstorm activity will continue.

"The highest numbers seem to be in that Buffalo Narrows, Meadow Lake, La Ronge, Northern Prince Albert region," Lang said.

Lang said we could see upwards of 50 to 90 millimetres of rain by Thursday morning. There is also a risk of some embedded thundershowers.

Another element will be the wind.

"We're expecting some pretty big winds to develop across much of southern Saskatchewan," Lang said.

Alam says crews are bracing for more rain Tuesday and the potential of localized flooding. 

"We're going to close roads to be local traffic only. 22nd Avenue from 22nd to the 25th. And 23rd and 24th Street." will be closed said Lang 

So when will this system finally exit the province?

"You can put those umbrellas away by Friday morning," Lang said.