While much of Alberta experienced turbulent weather on Tuesday night, a mother from Brooks said she was frightened by a funnel cloud next to the highway her family was travelling on around the same time a tornado alert was in effect for the area.
“You could feel it. I could definitely feel it as we were driving by,” Darsie Smith told Global News.
“It was a little too close for comfort.”
Smith said she was in a vehicle with her daughter and husband, who was driving, shortly after 8 p.m. when they saw an ominous formation in the sky northwest of Brooks and decided to take video of what they were driving by.
“We actually had just turned on to the highway when I saw it and my first reaction was to get off of the highway, but there was nowhere to really go,” she said.
Smith added that she told her husband to “drive faster so we can get off the highway and start going in the other direction.”
“My husband said, ‘Did you see all that?'” she said, adding that her daughter seemed to enjoy the excitement. “She loved it. She wasn’t scared at all.”
At 8 p.m., Alberta issued an emergency alert for parts of Newell County which surrounds Brooks because of a possible tornado. The alert was lifted soon after but by 8:46 p.m. another tornado alert was issued for the area.
READ MORE: Wild night of Alberta weather ends as all warnings, watches, advisories lifted
Smith said when they saw the funnel cloud, they were travelling west on the Trans-Canada Highway and the cloud was to the north of them. While she said she did not see it touch down, she was still unnerved by what she saw and felt.
“I hate storms. I’m actually really afraid of tornadoes,” she said. “Anyone who knows me knows this is probably the last place I wanted to be.”
Watch below: Ryan Dutton posted this footage to Twitter while golfing near Sprinkbank, Alta., Tuesday, showing a possible funnel cloud.