Saskatoon’s water director says storm pond helped mitigate flooding after Sunday rainstorm

After a major rainstorm hit Saskatoon on Sunday, the director of Saskatoon Water says a storm pond helped mitigate flooding in one of the hardest-hit areas of the city.

Russ Munro said the storm on Sunday – which he described as “close to a one-in-five-year rain event” – saw some parts of the city hammered by heavy rain, while other areas received almost no precipitation at all.

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The storm led to flooding on several streets in the Forest Grove area, but Munro said that was expected, given the intensity of the rain.

“We did get some reports of some street flooding from about eight different streets,” Munro told 650 CKOM on Monday.

“Our underground storm sewer system is designed to handle a one-in-two-year rain event, and then we use the streets and overland drainage, so things like storm ponds, to handle larger events.”

The intersection of Spruce Drive and Birch Crescent got hammered with a bunch of rain last night, causing it to look more like a canal than a road.

📸Eric Sarauer and Kadin Mhacher.#yxe @CKOMNews @CJMENews pic.twitter.com/up6vfRiOg6

— Shane (@ShaneC06) July 21, 2025

Another area that was hit hard by rain was the Nutana neighbourhood around Aden Bowman Collegiate, but Munro said some newer infrastructure in the area helped to keep the streets there from turning into canals.

“The area around Aiden Bowman got some of the most volume of rain in the event (Sunday) night, and the W.W. Ashley Dry Storm Pond that was done as part of the city’s flood control strategy worked successfully,” he said.

“We did not get a lot of reporting – or any reporting – of flooding in that general area.”

That pond, the city’s first, was completed in the fall of 2022, and the city has plans for several more.

Here’s some video of when the rain was falling in Saskatoon just after 7 p.m. last night. #yxe @CKOMNews @CJMENews

📸 Kadin Mhacher pic.twitter.com/9NaftJz6k1

— Shane (@ShaneC06) July 21, 2025

Munro said about 17 millimetres of rain fell in the Nutana neighbourhood, while the areas around Attridge Drive got about 26 millimetres of rain in a very short period. He said the rain was falling at a rate of about 90 millimetres per hour in that area.

While some residents told 650 CKOM they saw flooding in basements, Munro said no flooding of properties was reported to the city.

“What we’ve received calls from the public on – at this time, anyway – is streets. And that’s what we would expect, is the streets to carry that water as the underground system takes it away,” Munro said.

He encouraged residents to report any flooding to the city’s customer care centre.

“We do have crews that can come out and clear blocked catch basins, which can happen from time to time,” the water director explained.

“It also helps us to tune our models for flooding in the city, to better direct our resources in the future if we are seeing things that are different than what we would expect.”

–with files from 650 CKOM’s Brent Bosker