Risk of severe thunderstorms this weekend, followed by a cool down in Manitoba, Saskatchewan

Saturday, July 12, 2014, 4:06 PM -

A trough moving through Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan Saturday has prompted severe thunderstorm watches and warnings throughout the region. 

Major threats associated with this trough include damaging winds, bursts of heavy downpours, and large hail. 

"A fast moving line of thunderstorms is pushing through southern Manitoba and regions of Saskatchewan along the provincial border," said Weather Network meteorologist Monica Vaswani at 1:44 p.m. CDT. "The primary threat with these storms is damaging winds up to 100 km/h."

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The line of storms will continue to push southeastward through the evening, before diminishing overnight. 

Behind this trough, a much cooler air mass will settle into the region on Sunday -- dropping temperatures as much as 10 °C below normal daytime highs. Isolated showers will also return to southern Manitoba Sunday. 

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PRAIRIE FLOODING 

With the flood threat decreasing across much of southern Manitoba, Military has began to pull out of the region and government officials have started tallying up the damage from a week of surging water. 

"We're starting to get an estimate of what this is going to cost us and we're thinking it's at least $200 million and rising, for the cost of the repairs to roads and bridges and disaster financial assistance program," said Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger Friday in a press conference.

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Another $60 million in farm aid will be needed to compensate for about 3,840 square kilometres that cannot be seeded this year due to flooding. 

More money is expected to be needed for livestock producers. Premier Greg Selinger thanked the more than 500 military and reserve members who were deployed after he declared a state of emergency a week ago. They set up hundreds of thousands of sandbags, shored up dikes and monitored them for leaks. 

BELOW: "We are extremely satisfied with the way the operation was conducted."

With files from The Canadian Press