Multiple funnel clouds were spotted in southern Saskatchewan over the weekend.
Amber Komar,a resident of Southey, Sask., was in Indian Head when she saw one of them.
“I was looking at it and I’m like, ‘Oh, that kind of looks really funny, like that cloud is kind of moving,’ and all of a sudden the funnel cloud started coming out of the sky,” said Amber, who was driving with her husband at the time.
Environment and Climate change received three separate reports of funnel clouds. One was spotted near Indian Head by different people at different angles, and another at Abernethy.
Both were seen on Saturday and were determined to be two separate events.
On Sunday, another one was sighted near Bethune, also reported from different angles by different people. None of them touched the ground.
“Anytime we are starting to get that heat coming in that’s when these thunderstorms can spin up really quickly,” Terri Lang, meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada said.
“That’s when we often see these funnel clouds so this is about the time of year when we start receiving reports.”
She added that it feels sudden because we are running late on spring. We were just dealing with snowstorms and all of a sudden it feels like a quick change, she said, which might be surprising people.
“When the atmosphere allows, clouds have to be able to lift and move upwards,” Lang said.
“(It) usually comes with warmer (temperatures), wind in the upper atmosphere. Wind spins and clouds spin and when they spin quickly we get funnel clouds.”
“We are dealing with another La Niña summer coming from spring into summer. It’s supposed to go towards more neutral conditions. Last year was a La Niña summer as well and if you remember we had a huge drought of tornadoes during the summer,” she said.
“It was one of the slowest summers we’ve seen in decades.”
Lang also said that forecasting tornadoes is tricky and it’s not something they usually take a crack at. “For the most part, most funnel clouds don’t touch the ground,” she said.
“But you never know.”
She gave some tips to use if there is a tornado or a tornado warning
- Get to the lowest level of your house, preferably in a room without windows as injuries are usually caused by debris;
- Try to have as many walls as you can between you and the outside;
- If there is no basement, find a closet or a bathroom as they have piping in the walls or even get into a bathtub;
- If you live in an apartment, get in the hallway of the lowest floor.
“If you can see a funnel cloud coming that means the atmosphere is turbulent enough that it can produce a funnel cloud and perhaps even a tornado. Even these short little lasting ones when they come down, these land spouts, can cause a lot of damage,” she said.
Lang said that tornadoes happen every season and she hopes people are prepared.
She said that while the first step is always getting to a safe place, there is a lack of observation points for Environment and Climate Change. As such, they are asking people to put photos on social media when they spot one and use the hashtag #skstorm.
Emails can also be sent to skstorm@canada.ca.
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