Rain, storms and lightning were experienced across most of Alberta on Sunday, bringing funnel clouds and landspout tornadoes with them.
“They were generally very slow-moving thunderstorms, which kind of stands in sharp contrast to maybe your average severe weather day in Alberta,” said Eric Van Lochem, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Sunday was marked by heavy rainfall of up to 100mm, dreary weather and a series of storms — some of which persisted into Monday.
According to Environment Canada, multiple funnel clouds were confirmed across the province, as well as a landspout tornado in the Hardisty area.
“If you have a slow moving low-pressure system, lots of vorticity in the area, and you throw a thunderstorm — doesn’t even have to be a strong thunderstorm — into that type of environment, you can get these funnel clouds that sometimes touch down,” Van Lochem explained.
“But they’re usually tornadoes that result tend to be weak and very brief. And that’s basically what we saw transpire yesterday afternoon.”
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About 100 km southeast of Edmonton, a landspout was spotted bridging the ground to the sky.
Environment Canada is still assessing the strength of the tornado but believes it was relatively weak, touching down in an isolated area. It came after funnel cloud advisories went out across parts of Alberta.
People in the Edmonton region also spotted at least one funnel cloud forming over the southwest of the city.
“Lots of photos circulating on social media,” Van Lochem said, adding landspouts and funnel clouds like what was seen on Sunday were similar in nature, as opposed to the high-energy supercell storms that trigger more powerful tornadoes.
“Those are typically the thunderstorms that produce the very large, damaging tornadoes that you might see in the Midwest during the spring.”
Environment Canada is still working to determine whether it was one or two separate funnel clouds over Edmonton.
Lightning was also a factor in Sunday’s weather.
“There were quite a few lightning strikes because the storms were quite widespread, covering a pretty good chunk of the province,” Van Lochem said.
An apartment building in the southwest Rutherford neighbourhood was hit and briefly caught on fire before crews put it out.
On Monday, bits of plastic siding and charred wood were scattered on the ground below where the lightning struck. Area resident Alexander Yakavenka was in his home when he saw a flash of light.
“Great lightning, as for me, it looked like it was near my balcony. A couple of seconds later, it was strong,” Yakavenka said.
“It was unbelievable.”
The thunderstorms were slow-moving and headed to the northwest, as compared to the normal path of travel in Alberta, where we typically see storms form in the mountain foothills and move east across the Prairies.
— With files from Noah Rishaug, Global News
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