PHOTOS: Tornadoes, hail leave widespread damage across Saskatchewan

Many people are left picking up the pieces from Sunday’s storms across Saskatchewan.

Environment Canada warned Sunday afternoon about a severe thunderstorm outbreak across central and southern Saskatchewan including the possibility of tornadoes.

At one point in the evening, there were a dozen tornado warnings in effect.

Michele Cozart posted to the C95 Facebook page on Sunday “This is taken off my back deck towards Clarkboro Ferry area. Right around the time the tornado touched down.” (Michele Cozart/Facebook)

The weather agency is investigating five reported touchdowns, including Gravelbourg, Radisson, Aberdeen, Meadow Lake, and the RM of Bayne near Bruno.

In addition to the tornado risk, strong winds and hail battered a wide swath of the province.

There were a few communities hardest hit by damage, including Gravelbourg and Estevan.

“The entire town is pretty much messy. There’s branches and leaves all over the place,” said Gravelbourg resident Mark Yim.

Yim said buildings in the community also suffered significant damage, noting one building had parts of the roof that blew off and landed on vehicles parked nearby.

Heritage Place in Gravelbourg on Sunday, pieces of the building fell off, onto the parked vehicles. (Submitted/Marc Yim)

After talking to some homeowners, he said homes were also ruined, and fence posts were blown out of the ground.

Some fence posts in Gravelbourg flew out of the ground during the storm on Sunday. (Submitted/Marc Yim)

“Some of the siding on their house got completely destroyed. The windows smashed their fence. It’s like Swiss cheese… There’s holes.”

He said several cars are also left with cracked windows and dents.

“I don’t think anyone was prepared. It just came all of a sudden. We weren’t prepared.”

Province-wide weather warnings had people capturing the ever changing sky. Cindy Ediger-Griffiths submitted this photo from south of Shell Lake to C95’s Facebook call out. (Cindy Ediger-Griffiths/Facebook)

In Estevan, photos posted to social media show golf-ball-sized hail that fell.

Debris is left on the streets at the corner of 5th Street and 12th Avenue after the roof lifted off the Soul Hideout building, causing bricks and the metal roof to fly and rain down onto the streets below.

The largest hail was in southern Saskatchewan. It ranged from quarter and toonie size up to 2 1/2 inches, larger than a golf ball, in Estevan.

Estevan was hit the hardest in regards to hail on Sunday. There were reports of hail larger than golf balls falling to the ground. (Submitted/Allan Scott)

Meanwhile, heavy hail south of Blaine Lake made it look like there was a snow-covered road.

Anne Spirit Bear had an interesting drive in the Blaine Lake area on June 23, 2024 as severe thunderstorm warnings were province-wide. She shared her photo to C95’s Facebook page. (Anne Spirit Bear/Facebook)

“I am sure there will be many people looking at their roof this morning and calling their insurance companies, ” said meteorologist Brad Vrolijk.

He describes the storms as the worst of the season so far.

“These storms produced a whole bunch of severe weather. This was certainly the biggest outbreak this year in Saskatchewan.”

“The hail in Estevan was unusually large when you get above golf ball size that’s not a common hail size on the Canadian Prairies. A rarer event than we often see.”

A cloud formation on Sunday evening over the Co-op on 51st street in Saskatoon. (Kevin Budzinski/Facebook)

-With Files From Brent Bosker and Discover Estevan