Tornado warning, funnel cloud churn fear in central Alberta

A funnel cloud skirted around the fairgrounds at the Ponoka Stampede in central Alberta and may have touched down in a Ponoka neighbourhood Thursday afternoon.

Environment Canada issued a tornado warning for Ponoka, Ponoka County, and Maskwacis at 5:18 p.m. MT, but downgraded the threat after 6 p.m. MT.

"We at this point in time have not been able to confirm any reports of a tornado being on the ground," said Environment Canada meteorologist Brian Proctor.

"We've seen the same Twitter reports that you have of a possible house being destroyed but we have not been able to confirm that at this point."

Shot just after 5pm in Ponoka, AB <a href="https://twitter.com/weathernetwork">@weathernetwork</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/GlobalEdmonton">@GlobalEdmonton</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/TornadoGreg">@TornadoGreg</a> <a href="https://t.co/Gnh7QiXNWn">pic.twitter.com/Gnh7QiXNWn</a>

&mdash;@Bloomquist_Eric

Shelley Dedio was on the opposite side of town from her home taking pictures of a "crazy cloud," when her son called to say, "You guys need to get out of there now." 

"It's just like my whole backyard and my whole sun room," she said. "My kitchen window is broken, but the actual, structural part of the house other than the sun room is OK."

She said the house across the street lost part of the roof, while a tree fell over into her next-door neighbour's yard.

She said her next door neighbour was in the house at the time.

"She said it felt like her windows were being sucked in," Dedio said. "She was down in the basement."

Thousands of people at the Ponoka Stampede watched with growing alarm Thursday afternoon as a storm that produced a funnel cloud rolled across a gun-metal sky.

Mike Stretch, president of the stampede, said about 10,000 people were on the grounds when the storm passed by to the north.

"It was fairly vicious looking," he said. "We took it seriously. We had an evacuation plan in place."

Stretch said organizers did not have to evacuate the grounds, and the storm passed at about 5:30 p.m. and moved off to the east.

"They said there was a touch down north of town," he said, "but I can't confirm that completely."

Environment Canada meteorologists said they were tracking the severe thunderstorm that was possibly producing a tornado.

Proctor said Environment Canada began to see significant rotation around 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. with the storm approaching Ponoka from the west.

They began to get Twitter and email reports of possible funnel clouds just before 5 p.m., he said.

Once they saw the storm on Doppler radar, they issued the tornado warning.