A couple of iconic Canadian cities--one on the Prairies, the other Down East--have taken a real beating from what is now called "severe weather" over the past several days.

How severe?

Let's begin in southern Manitoba, where over 50 millimetres of rain--laced with hail and thunder--began last Thursday and didn't stop until Saturday night, turning streets in towns and cities into rivers, flooding houses and playing havoc with farmers' crops.

Many roads in Winnipeg were flooded by Friday's downpour. (Submitted)

If nothing else, southern Manitoba proved it could take a punch.

The town of Zhorda got 144 millimetres of rain.

Other Manitoba communities--including Brandon, Marchand and Dominion City--got over 100 millimetres.

People in Winnipeg found themselves needing to be rescued from cars stranded in streets that flooded Friday morning as 45 millimetres of rain was recorded at the airport and 53 millimetres at The Forks during the storm.

This farm, 30 miles south of Brandon, was hit hard by the storm. (Bill Campbell)

Meanwhile, Prince Edward Islanders are recovering from a thunderstorm that dropped close to 50 millimetres from early morning to late afternoon on Tuesday.

Damage was kept to a minimum because city workers had cleared debris away from catch basins in anticipation of the storm so only a couple of downtown streets needed to be closed for a short time.

Canada, of course, has a long history of stories about what is now called severe weather.

The thunderstorm in Charlottetown Tuesday left this section of Queen Street under a lot of water. (Laura O'Connor/Twitter)

But maybe because a whole lot of people are more and more spooked by dire forecasts about the planet's future, every storm tends to appear just a bit more ominous and minds and fears can kick into overdrive at warp speed.

Frankly, I, too, am spooked, given the changes we keep seeing in the weather: a balmy Arctic, its edges slipping into the oceans as wildfires rage and temperatures on the Canadian Prairies prove colder than the North Pole.

For some perspective on the Manitoba and Prince Edward Island storms--and whether they are harbingers of the future--I spoke by phone with David Phillips, Environment and Climate Change Canada’s senior climatologist.

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