MOOSOMIN — Saskatchewan skies never fail to amaze, especially when storm systems begin to produce tornadoes. Many in the World-Spectator readership saw a tornado on June 29 tracking across southeast Saskatchewan, first north of Stockholm, then east of the community. The storm continued south across the Qu’Appelle Valley before crossing the TransCanada near Wapella to carry on south.
According to Environment Canada meteorologist Bryan Proctor, this is just the start of tornado season and we’ve already experienced a dozen so far this year in spite of the wet, cool start to summer.
“Typically, on an annual basis, we get about 14 verified tornadoes in Saskatchewan,” he said. “So far this year, we’ve had 12.”
As daytime highs continue to rise heading into July and August, this could easily be an above-average year for twisters.
“The season is looking very much above normal in terms of the amount of tornado activity we’ve had this point in time, and we’re just entering the really substantial season,” Proctor explained. “It’s really July into early August is our most active tornado time of the year.”
He also noted that southeast Saskatchewan and southwest Manitoba is actually one of the most active areas for tornado activity in Canada.
Firsthand account following the twister
Brett Tollefson and fiancée Paula Bear were just wrapping up a date night in Yorkton when they noticed the storm.
“As we were driving south, the storm that was kind of raining on and off was kind of following the path that we were taking,” Tollefson said. “The clouds started doing a rotation, so we would stop along a gravel road, watch it for about five, 10 minutes and then drive a little bit further on down the highway and stop again.”
Conveniently, the storm seemed to follow their path home to Whitewood, allowing Tollefson and Bear front row seats to an amazing show while not having to veer much off course.
“The last time we stopped, we were just on the other side of Bangor and the clouds stopped rotating,” Tollefson said. “I was getting disappointed, because I’ve been chasing storms for probably 25 years and gone all over the province just in hopes for a glimpse of a tornado, and so it stopped rotating, and then we were going down this gravel road and came to a dead end.”
The duo backtracked a little bit, ending up north of Stockholm before getting back on track with the storm when a different sort of temporary tragedy struck.
“We would have been about five miles away from it. I got out right away, I’m almost in tears, taking a video of it, and my phone died,” Tollefson recounted. “I was terrified, because what if I was by myself? I had this perfect opportunity right in front of me, but I’m glad Paula had her phone on, so she started taking a bunch of pictures.”
“It was almost a perfect storm, because the tornado didn’t hurt anyone,” Tollefson continued. “It touched down for maybe about a minute, minute-and-a-half, but it didn’t do any damage. No one was hurt, there was no hail involved, I didn’t damage my jeep. Everything was just right.”
Back on the highway at Stockholm and headed for Whitewood, Tollefson and Bear soon had their second encounter with a tornado.
“The second one was starting to come down again, and it was unbelievable,” Tollefson said. “The funnel cloud would just come and touch down for another second and it would go right back up again. When I first saw it, literally, I was almost out of breath and then tears, because I never thought I would ever catch one. It was a great opportunity to witness that.”
Chasing the storm seemed like a perfect way to cap a Sunday date night.
“We were pretty psyched when we got home, because it was about eight o’clock when this happened, so by the time we got home, we were all giggly and just buzzing; hyper,” Tollefson recalled. “It was an amazing feeling. It was a great way to end the date. It’s one of my little bucket list items stroked off.”
What fascinated Tollefson was how seemingly perfect the whole experience was.
“We were blessed,” he said. “To see something so beautiful that didn’t hurt no one, didn’t cause no damage, a few other people got to see it. It was a storm chaser's dream, where it was a nice little show. It wasn’t a big one, but it was a tornado that came down, perfect little funnel hit the ground, minute, minute-and-a-half, she just went right back up and continued going.”
Why didn’t I get an alert?
Proctor was asked why there was no alert issued for the tornado.
“The alerts are generated by our meteorologist,” Proctor explained. “They’re looking at radar data, observed data, satellite imagery, lightning strikes, all that sort of ancillary information, pulling it together and coming up with a tornado warning if and when they see it.”
Tollefson and Bear also noted not receiving an alert.
“I usually put News Talk on, just to hear in case an alert did pop up, but nothing on the phone, no, nothing on the radio, they just had thunderstorms. There was nothing, no warnings at all.”
“It’s not new, but it does have its gaps sometimes,” Proctor said of NAADS. “Largely, the gaps tend to be people become dependent upon cell phone systems to get that information, and oftentimes, if you don’t have adequate cell coverage, you don’t get that information.”
While Proctor admits systems aren’t totally perfect, it would be rather difficult to miss a large-scale storm producing a tornado.
“Our systems aren’t perfect, we have gaps,” he said. “We have gaps in our radars, things of that nature, so we do the best we can with the available information. We have to get those alerts out. I would think it’s very rare for us to miss a severe thunderstorm. If we get that information, and we get a report of that of a tornado being on the ground, we will then immediately push out the tornado warning.”
Eyewitness reports are always welcome.
“We love that reporting, it helps us immensely,” said Proctor. “Oftentimes, things will be rain wrapped; it’ll be at an area where we don’t have proper Doppler coverage, so we’re not seeing the rotation. We can see a bit, very significant thunderstorm on our radars, but if we don’t get the Doppler coverage, we can’t see the rotation, we don’t know exactly what’s going on with it, if it is producing a tornado or not.”
