Funnel clouds, hail hit parts of Avalon Peninsula
Some areas of the Avalon Peninsula had some adverse weather early Saturday afternoon, as a severe thunder storm moved into the area.
While thunder and lightning echoed through the St. John's area, there were several reports of funnel clouds spotted forming across the metro region.
"In order to get something like that to touch the ground, which would be a tornadic storm cell, you want that rotation to be extending not only from the upper levels where the clouds are, but right to the surface, and we didn't see that kind of extent today. With that weaker rotation, that's why we only saw them forming above the surface and extending down only a slight distance," said Barney.
Barney said while it's unusual to see these kinds of cloud formations in the St. John's area, it's not the first time they've been spotted in the province.
"Certainly we've seen [funnel clouds] in the past over the interior parts of the island; we've had reports of them in the Gander area in the past or in the Grand Falls area over years gone by. But I must say this is probably one of the first times I recall them in the St. John's-metro area, but with that very unstable air mass certainly the conditions were right for that kind of development."
Newfoundland Power located a power line damaged by a lightning strike in an isolated area near Colinet that caused an outage in the Whitbourne-Conception Bay North area.
Crews were dispatched to make the necessary repairs to restore power to the area.
Barney added there was a likelihood of showers on the Avalon on and off through Saturday evening and a risk of thunder showers, but a low threat of any severe weather.