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Environment and Climate Change Canada investigating 8 possible tornadoes across Saskatchewan
Environment and Climate Change Canada investigating 8 possible tornadoes across Saskatchewan

CBC

timea day ago

  • Climate
  • CBC

Environment and Climate Change Canada investigating 8 possible tornadoes across Saskatchewan

Jeffery Tram Meteorologist says 8 tornadoes in 1 day would be 'quite substantial' if confirmed Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) says it is investigating eight possible tornadoes that may have touched down across southern Saskatchewan on Thursday. Reports range from the Saskatoon area to towns east of Estevan. Crawford Luke, a meteorologist with ECCC, said the events are still under investigation and nothing has been officially confirmed. However, he described the scope of the reports as significant. "To have eight tornadoes in a day would be quite substantial, I would say. Not a very common occurrence," Luke said. The system that triggered the storms was a sharp trough moving across the province, creating a sudden wind shift that acted as a catalyst for thunderstorms. The storms were concentrated in a line stretching from near Saskatoon, through the Regina area and southeast to the Manitoba border, Luke said. Luke said the suspected tornadoes include: One near Young, southeast of Saskatoon. Three near Regina in the communities of Davin, Odessa and Hubbard. Four in the southeast, including near Frobisher and Hirsch, east of Estevan. Luke said ECCC uses multiples sources for their investigations. "We had a bunch of storm spotters and storm chasers posting videos and pictures to social media," Luke said. "We sort of take what we can get. Fortunately, in this case, we have a lot of eyewitness accounts and some pretty good radar data to work with." The possible tornadoes on Thursday could add to an already active season. Saskatchewan has seen four confirmed tornadoes so far this year — two on June 2 near Cut Knife and two on June 13 near Coleville and Hepburn. Luke said it's too early to tell whether this summer will be particularly busy. "It's really hard to forecast that. Tornadoes are kind of tough, because you could have a day like potentially what we saw yesterday, and then that can kind of bring your numbers up for the year quite dramatically all at once." Saskatchewan saw plenty of extreme weather in 2024 He added that while there's no immediate threat of more tornadoes, the season is far from over. "It's still June. We still have July, August, September. So I'm sure there's going to be more severe thunderstorm days ahead." One of the most dramatic storm visuals Thursday came from Saskatoon, where a video posted on Reddit showed a powerful lightning strike downtown. Luke confirmed that the same storm complex that may have produced the tornado near Young also brought that lightning storm through the city. "It looked like it was a prolific lightning show that went through Saskatoon," Luke said. Luke encouraged residents to share photos, videos or damage reports by email or online. He said those public reports are often valuable to help meteorologists confirm what happened on the ground. He also gave advice about what to do if you find yourself in the middle of a tornado warning. "Get to the lowest floor, most interior part of a building, and try to put as many walls between you and the outside as possible."

Class gives UND students a chance to chase storms, get experiential learning
Class gives UND students a chance to chase storms, get experiential learning

Yahoo

time3 days ago

  • Climate
  • Yahoo

Class gives UND students a chance to chase storms, get experiential learning

Jun. 18—GRAND FORKS — The first day of storm chasing for the University of North Dakota's storm experience class featured a weather phenomenon that would be one of the key memories for the students and professor. In Colorado, the 22 members of the multi-state trip watched a tornado touch the earth. It was a favorite moment for several of the storm chasing students. Sam Johnson, in his third year at UND studying atmospheric sciences, said it was his first time seeing a tornado in person, and though he wouldn't describe it as exactly "world changing," it was along those lines for him. "You hear stories about how powerful and destructive they are, and there's one right in front of you," he said. "It's really cool." The storm experience class, held during the last two weeks of May, started with two days of instruction and travel before chasing. In the two vans that went as far as Texas were four teaching assistants who also served as drivers; 18 students; Montana Etten-Bohm, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences and the professor for the course; and Jake Mulholland, a professor who led the class last year. The class offered the chance for experiential learning, Etten-Bohm said, teaching the students an equivalent of a 16-week class in two weeks of real-life experience. Along with the tornado sighting, the class visited different atmospheric research facilities, toured a facility for developing new technologies on a weather research plane, and toured the plane itself. The students, gathered into different groups, took time bonding and stopped at a teaching assistant's house for a meal. The students also got to meet up with other storm chasers on a day in Texas, tracking the only storm in the state as part of ICECHIP (In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Haile In the Plains). Brenden Marto, a senior double majoring in commercial aviation and air traffic management, said that was one of his favorite days. There were more than 50 cars stopped at a truck stop, all following the storm. "My little kid dream of wanting to be a storm chaser was kind of all coming true when I'm walking through this parking lot and seeing all these cars that I've known for years, but never seen in person up close and live," he said. The students were split into three groups that rotated through three kinds of teams: logistics, social media and forecasting. The logistics team focused on finding places to eat and sleep while on the road; the social media team posted the goings-on of the trip online; and the forecasting team tracked the weather and decided where the class would go. "It's really rewarding when you do all this timing and take all these considerations into effect and have to give a forecast in the morning," Marto said. "And everybody has to agree with you on where you guys want to go for the day." Etten-Bohm believes the logistics team was underappreciated, as its responsibility was finding hotels that weren't expensive, but still quality, as well as finding where to eat and get fuel. Etten-Bohm had been on the previous year's trip more as an observer, which she said was beneficial to her being the instructor this year. Her top priority was safety, but she still wanted to get the students into weather situations, she said. One thing that stood out to her was the number of students who attended who weren't majoring in atmospheric sciences. "One thing that makes this trip and this class more unique than other classes out there, not just at UND but other similar storm chasing classes out there, is that the predominant majority of our students that go on this trip are atmospheric sciences minors," she said. "They're not majoring in atmospheric sciences. ... They still want to go and want to learn and have this really unique and cool experience. I think, too, it also motivates them to be more involved in atmospheric sciences. ... I think this is one of the benefits of this class — to help students get more engaged in meteorology." Sophomore Sophia Barton, who has been studying commercial aviation, said she might be changing her major or adding on the atmospheric sciences major following the class. "A lot of the people, especially the teaching assistants, they major in atmospheric sciences, and it brings a lot of different perspectives on you," she said. "They were telling me about it, and there's one person who actually does fly and does atmospheric sciences, who encouraged me to do both because I knew it'd be possible to do it." Some of the students said the members of the group were mostly strangers to them, but by the end of the trip, they had all become close. Colin Gilley, who will be going into his senior year in the fall studying commercial aviation, minoring in atmospheric sciences and specializing in aviation safety, said he was nervous at first, but by the end of the trip, it felt like being with co-workers rather than strangers. Connection was part of the trip, along with the knowledge portion, he said, and he still spends time with those he was with. "Some of the people that were in my group, we've been going out and hanging out after we do our class work, or start studying together," he said. Joslyn Sutton, a sophomore majoring in air traffic management and minoring in meteorology and space studies, said her mom encouraged her to go on the trip. Her biggest takeaway from the class is "just do it," which she encourages others to do who might be interested in taking the class. "Just do the thing," she said. "I was nervous. ... At the end, we were all hugging like, 'Man, I don't want to leave this group.' It fostered such a great experience for all of us."

Why the best part of storm chasing isn't the storms
Why the best part of storm chasing isn't the storms

Washington Post

time7 days ago

  • Climate
  • Washington Post

Why the best part of storm chasing isn't the storms

I've been a meteorologist and storm chaser for years. Public interest in storm chasing has skyrocketed since last year's debut of 'Twisters' — but it's nothing like the movies, in which predictably located and dramatically shaped funnels perform dramatic dances for dazzled onlookers. In real life, chasing storms isn't a convenient choreography between the chaser and the clouds; it's a painstaking pursuit that, even for the best chasers, is endlessly frustrating.

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