Landspout tornado spotted near Griffin, Sask.

A woman who watched a land spout tornado touch down south east of Regina said she’s thankful the twister didn’t get any closer than it did.

Chelsey Van Staveren was with her dad in their farmyard, near Griffin, Sask. on Saturday afternoon when she said dark clouds started to move in.

She said, initially, she didn’t think there was any real cause for concern because there weren’t any warnings or watches at the time.

“We thought it was going to be a regular, run-of-the-mill thunderstorm here in Saskatchewan ,” Staveren said.

Then, a funnel slowly reached down from the clouds, eventually touching down in a field not far from where they were working.

When the funnel hit the ground, she and her dad got up onto the porch and watched from a safe distance.

“Definitely a moment for me when I was looking at him and I said, ‘Should we go inside? Should we go to the basement?'” Staveren said. “It had crossed a quarter to a half of our yard within a minute. It was travelling pretty good.”

She said it was on the ground for about 10 minutes.

“I was a little panicked. Just shocked. Like I said, there wasn’t any warnings,” she said.

She added the twister stayed a safe distance away and didn’t cause any damage, but she said it could have been a lot worse.

“Kind of crazy to look back on to think it wasn’t very far off our yard.”

Environment Canada said a land spout tornado is usually weaker than a super cell tornado, but can still be quite dangerous.

“In this case this was a land spout and land spout tornados can get up to EF2 damage and wind speeds, but they are typically weaker then their super cell counterparts,” Alysa Pederson, a meteorologist with Environment Canada said.