Possible tornado touches down near Moose Jaw

A spring storm brought quite the sight to southern Saskatchewan on Tuesday evening.

Multiple posts went up on social media, showing pictures and videos of what appeared to be a tornado.

It happened not far from Moose Jaw, around the towns of Caron and Keeler.

Trent Shillington was out seeding just after 7 p.m. when he saw the massive storm.

It was quite a shock for him.

“You could see there was a pretty big tornado that didn’t look too far away … So (I was) a little concerned,” he said Wednesday morning.

But while he was out in the field, his wife was at their house and got a very close look at it.

“I didn’t realize it was right outside our garage door at the house here, so it was a lot closer to the yard than we thought it was,” he recalled.

“It was a pretty big tornado. I’ve never seen one that close or stuck on the ground for that long.”

He said it was on the ground for about five minutes.

Even though it got so close to his home, it could have been a lot worse.

“We had no damage here. When it’s on the ground that long, I can’t say it didn’t hit someone else’s yard or do some damage somewhere else, but we were lucky. It was that close and we can see no damage at all, really,” he said.

Trent Shillington saw what appears to be a tornado on his farm near Caron on Tuesday.
He was out seeding, but his wife says she saw it get close to their garage door.
Thankfully, there was no damage on the farm.#skstorm @CJMENews @CKOMNews @GregMorganCJME pic.twitter.com/Dwsgo6G8U7

— Dom Lucyk (@DomLucyk) May 18, 2022

A bit further north, near Keeler, Rob Been also saw the storm.

It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before.

“I’m still kind of awestruck over the whole experience. Me and my wife were just sitting watching TV. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a bolt of lightning that lit up the whole house … immediately followed by a crack of thunder that I thought was coming through the house,” Been said.

“And just off to the south, there was this tornado that was forming … Next thing you know, I was getting pelted by little pea-sized hailstones.”

He said it stayed on the ground in his area for about three minutes.

“And it just came out of nowhere … It was a beautiful afternoon. (I) got home to the acreage at about 6:15 p.m., and within 45 minutes, this thing just appeared out of nowhere,” he recalled.

“It was really weird to watch and kind of awesome at the same time.”

Just south of Keeler,Sk pic.twitter.com/JTK2tH90lE

— Rob Been (@Xceler8in) May 18, 2022

Shillington and Been are both sure it was a tornado, but the weather office hasn’t confirmed that just yet.

Environment Canada meteorologist Eric Dykes said the staff needs to look into it a bit more.

“We’re going to call it a probable tornado for now, just because we have to do some investigative work on our end later today,” he explained.

That work will include checking into what kind of tornado this could have been.

“There are some people on the internet speculating that it was a landspout tornado versus what’s known as a supercell tornado. Supercell tornadoes are usually very big, large storms (with) lots of rotation in them … whereas (landspouts) are a little bit more meek,” he said.

Dykes also touched on an interesting detail for the forecast this week: It’s possible that snow could be coming.

“A lot of the weather models … have been for the last few days painting a picture of rain changing over to perhaps wet snow early Friday morning … especially in the southeast of the province,” he said.

“It looks like Regina, points east, points south and so forth might be in the crosshairs.”