Weather expert says he's never seen so many tornadoes as thunderstorm moves across province
Boshika Gupta | CBC News | Posted: June 15, 2023 2:04 AM | Last Updated: June 15, 2023
Environment Canada lifts tornado warning, issues thunderstorm alert
Environment Canada meteorologists were tracking a thunderstorm that had the potential to produce a tornado in several parts of Alberta as the province continued to receive rainfall after a prolonged dry spell.
Earlier in the day on Wednesday Environment Canada had issued tornado watches and warnings for several parts of the province and said that a "severe thunderstorm" had the potential to possibly produce a tornado in Alberta.
By 9:30 p.m. those tornado alerts had ended, however there were severe thunderstorm and rainfall warnings in place for several regions.
WATCH | An Alberta man captured this video moments before rain and hail started:
According to Kyle Brittain, a freelance video journalist and weather expert, multiple tornadoes made an appearance in different parts of the province.
"We tracked eight tornadoes today, starting back from Iron Springs just north of Lethbridge all the way to Brooks. Eight tornadoes between Iron Springs and Brooks," he said before adding, "I've never seen so many tornadoes in one day in my life."
Brittain believes that these tornadoes belong to a category known as landspout tornadoes and may not cause as much damage as other varieties. However, they can still cause significant damage, according to the weather expert.
"These tornadoes could be weak, but they can also be very strong," he said.
But why are these tornadoes showing up in the first place? Brittain has an explanation.
"The reason why they're happening is we have some unstable air and air is really strongly converging along an axis across southern Alberta where we've got strong northerly winds on the north side and strong southwesterly winds on the southern side of this boundary," he said.
"So where you have those winds coming together, you get these little pockets of swirling air, you get a thunderstorm updraft developing on top of that and it can spin it up into a tornado."