Record-breaking rainfall brought flooded streets, power outages

Windsor-Essex saw a record-breaking amount of rain Tuesday, with a total of 47.5 mm — 38 mm of it from the evening storms.

Dave Rogers, meteorologist for Environment Canada, said there weren't any reports of tornadoes, but wind damage was reported.

"I imagine we'll hear more damage this morning when people get out of bed and see things in the daylight. At this point, it seems like it'll just be wind damage," said Rogers.

Rogers was on duty at the time the warning was issued. Even though no funnel clouds or twisters were seen, he said it warranted the warning because of a "rotation signature" evident on Doppler radar.

"That sometimes means that there could be a tornado," Rogers explained. "We can't tell exactly from radar that there would be a tornado necessarily, but there's a decent chance there could have been."

The previous record for most amount of rain was set on Sept. 25, 1945, with 32 mm.

According to Enwin, up to 2,500 people were without power in south Windsor. Power has since been restored in that area.

However, about 700 people are still experiencing outages according to Hydro One, many near Tilbury.

Flooded streets

In LaSalle, water was accumulating on the streets and in parking lots.

Jackie Sheriff's basement didn't flood, but she said she never saw that level of flooding on her street before.

"We can see the water was almost halfway up our driveway," she said.

One of her neighbours couldn't get to Amherstburg to pick up his son from hockey practice because his car couldn't get through the water.

Tony Annyschyn was doing some shopping in LaSalle off Malden Road. He said his drive back to his south Windsor home was a difficult one.

"It was heavy, torrential, swirling type rain," he said. Prior to leaving, he saw the parking lot starting to fill up with water.

Visibility and street flooding was also an issue for him and he contemplated pulling over several times because it was so difficult to drive.

When he got home, a part of his backyard — prone to flooding — was under water.

Forecast

There are no weather alerts in place currently for Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia-Lambton.

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The sky is expected to clear by Wednesday afternoon.