Brief tornado warning causes stir

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This article was published 21/06/2023 (1220 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A tornado warning put a few people on edge in Westman late Monday evening when alerts came over their mobile devices and television sets that a twister was either in the area or on the way.

Meteorologists with Environment and Climate Change Canada issued the tornado warning at 10:09 p.m., as they tracked a severe thunderstorm on radar, heading for communities from Minto north to Brandon, Minnedosa and Dauphin, and east toward Carberry.

Minnedosa’s Vanessa Blair said she was getting ready to go to bed, when “all of a sudden, my phone went off and the TV went off with all the little whoop-whoop sounds,” Blair said.

The tornado warning ended at 10:28 p.m., which was immediately replaced by a severe thunderstorm warning, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Blair said she heard that notification as well.

“I fell asleep after that and when I woke up this morning, my co-worker who lives up the road from me sent me a picture and asked if I was OK.”

Blair said she was surprised when she saw the picture of one of her trees, knocked down by the wind gusts and lying across the driveway.

“So my friend gave me a ride to work this morning,” she said.

There were no reports of a tornado touching down in the warning areas, but the heat and humidity in western Manitoba will continue to create perfect conditions for severe weather, said Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Sara Hoffman.

An air mass from the Gulf of Mexico that is both warm and humid has been a strong influence on Westman’s weather for the past several weeks. And now that the province’s crops have matured, “they too” are adding moisture to the atmosphere, said Hoffman.

“Those crops give off a little bit of moisture in the daytime, and with the strong south flow — those two things acting together has led to a lot of fuel for strong Prairie storms, and will continue to do so,” Hoffman said.

Severe thunderstorms at night are not unusual for Manitoba. Sometimes storms that form in the United States will drift northward, and other times they’ll move in from Saskatchewan.

Also contributing to the creation of late storms is the stretch of hot summer days, said Hoffman, because the daytime high is achieved late in the afternoon.

“When the peak of daytime heating is so late in the afternoon, these thunderstorms can form, and if they’re strong enough, and conditions are right, they can maintain themselves throughout the night and then just kind of truck along,” Hoffman said.

“So as long as you have all those ingredients of moisture, instability, shear — as in wind — and a trigger, like a cold air mass, a severe thunderstorm can form at night, absolutely,” she said.

Tracking the storm “in the middle of nowhere” on Monday evening were husband-and-wife storm chasing team, Jeff Plas and Mandi Grayston of Westman Storm Chasers, who are based out of Brandon.

“We couldn’t catch it. It was fast, and we were pretty much in between Brookdale and Neepawa, almost, but not quite to Gladstone and mostly on back roads,” Plas said.

When the couple first met, they realized they both “liked storms,” said Plas, and have turned their hobby into a dedicated following on social media with the goal of providing people with as much up-to-the-minute information as possible during a storm.

“But it can also be very dangerous, so last night at 11:30 p.m., I had to make the call,” said Plas. “I’m the driver, so I had to make the call to stop because if we actually did come across a tornado in the dark, you can’t see it. So, with the danger, it’s just not worth it.”

It was during the evening of June 22, 2007, when a powerful F5 tornado hit the town of Elie, 40 kilometres west of Winnipeg, with winds recorded at 420 km/h to 510 km/h.

No lives were lost, but a home was swept off its foundation, which justified the F5 classification.

Every storm setup is different, Hoffman said.

“Even though we know thunderstorms form here, or come from the west, and drift up from the United States, every day is different,” she said.

“And that’s why it’s a good idea to keep your head on a swivel on the Manitoba prairie, because they can come from anywhere.”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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