Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) warned of conditions that could form funnel clouds in a special weather statement yesterday, and shortly after the sightings came pouring in.
Meteorologist Crawford Luke said that a total of six reports of funnel clouds were made to ECCC by Southern Saskatchewan residents and five came from the Moose Jaw-Regina corridor alone.
“A lot of them are from around (Moose Jaw) actually. One of them was spotted in Moose Jaw and then there were three that were spotted in Regina, one in Bethune and then there was one further east in Rocanville, out towards Esterhazy,” he said, noting that none of the funnel clouds were reported to have touched down.
“We don't really have any reports or reason to believe that there was a tornado. (There are) no damage reports, no photos that show it all the way to the ground or anything like that.”
According to ECCC, the reports began in the late morning, around 10 a.m., with sightings from Moose Jaw and Regina picking up steam shortly after 3 p.m.
The special weather statement has since ended, and Luke explained that more funnel clouds are not likely in our area, at least for the time being.
“It might be a problem for Manitoba, but not as much for Saskatchewan. It looks like it'll be more of a Manitoba issue later this week when that front comes through and cools things down, but the next few days certainly just look hot, sunny and dry. So probably not expecting this type of weather immediately,” said Luke.
“I think the story now is all about the heat. I know there's heat warnings west of Moose Jaw, not including Moose Jaw, but it still looks like a hot couple of days.”
We’re forecast to hit a high of 30° today, which is a little warmer than normal and according to Luke, a long way off the record.
“The record today for Moose Jaw is 36.7° and that was set back in 1894, so that's a pretty long-standing record. The record for tomorrow is 36.1° and that one was set in 1980,” he explained.
“Today we’re probably not breaking the record. Tomorrow we might be flirting with the record—we're forecasting 35 right now—we'll be in the ballpark, so we’ll just have to wait and see.”