3 tornadoes touched down during 'very intense' western Manitoba storms last week, experts say

Three tornadoes swept through western and southwestern Manitoba last week, experts have confirmed.

Through a combination of satellite imagery and on-the-ground damage assessments, crews with the Northern Tornadoes Project and Environment Canada say the three EF-1 tornadoes touched down during a storm on June 20.

The storms in southwestern Manitoba that day "were very intense" and were being monitored in real time by the Northern Tornadoes Project — a lab based at Western University that has collaborators at other universities on the Prairies — said David Sills, the lab's executive director.

The enhanced Fujita (EF) scale is a six-point system that rates tornadoes based on wind speed and damage. An EF-0 rating is designated for tornadoes with wind speeds as low as 90 kilometres per hour, while an EF-5 has wind speeds in excess of 315 kilometres an hour.

The first tornado last Tuesday touched down around 9:35 p.m. near the Canada-U.S. border in southwestern Manitoba, leaving a trail of damage to trees in the William Lake Provincial Park and surrounding areas.

A second tornado touched down north of Killarney, about 80 kilometres southeast of Brandon, 20 minutes later.

The two tornadoes reached wind speeds of about 145 km/h and 155 km/h, respectively, and were classified as EF-1, said Sills and Natalie Hasell, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

A third tornado touched down to the northeast of Killarney hours later, at about 11:30 p.m., and reached wind speeds of 145 km/h. It sliced its way northeast from the areas of Sidney and Worby through MacGregor and north of Bagot, according to the Northern Tornadoes Project.

Hasell said Environment Canada has been collaborating with the Northern Tornadoes Project more in recent years, and she credited them with helping to confirm damage sites connected with the trio of June 20 tornadoes.

Sills and the team from Western University travelled to Manitoba after the storm and joined University of Manitoba researchers on the ground last week to follow up on damage reports. 

"It was quite a bit of damage, though thankfully none of it was very significant," he said. "A lot of it was just light damage to trees and buildings, like farm buildings and grain bins."

An interactive map created by the Northern Tornadoes Project includes photos of damage posted to social media, along with other information the team used to determine where the tornadoes touched down:

Environment and Climate Change Canada issued tornado warnings again Monday night in Westman, for areas including the municipality of Glenella-Lansdowne, the rural municipality of Rosedale and the RMs of Yellowhead and Oakview. The last of those warnings were lifted before 8 p.m.

Hasell said investigations into whether any tornadoes actually touched down on Monday are underway.

She encouraged anyone who saw or documented damage to their property or elsewhere, in connection with either Monday's storm or the June 20 storm, to contact Environment and Climate Change Canada at 1-800-239-0484 or email storm@ec.gc.ca.