1 tornado confirmed, 2 others possible after wild day of weather

An active day of weather Friday brought large hail, heavy rain and at least one tornado to parts of Saskatchewan.

Environment Canada’s Brad Vrolijk confirmed the tornado touched down southeast of Saskatoon between Elstow and Allan on Friday around 1 p.m. Two other unconfirmed tornadoes may have hit ground too, according to Vrolijk.

He said those were possibly in the Edgeley and Wapella areas. Around Edgeley, he said people were sending in photos of a potential tornado but then it got wrapped in rain and was difficult to see.

Around Wapella, a wind speed of 117 kilometres per hour was clocked in the middle of the night, leading the weather office to believe a tornado touchdown was possible there.

Vrolijk said meteorologists will work Saturday to confirm those additional tornadoes.

A real light show east of Regina. #yqr #skstorm pic.twitter.com/ddNPCuiU4Z

— Britton Gray (@BrittonGray) July 16, 2022

Several warnings for severe thunderstorms were issued across the province Friday afternoon and evening. Environment Canada eventually put out tornado warnings for areas around Regina and regions in the southeast. Numerous pictures on social media showed ominous-looking clouds in those areas.

Vrolijk said those storms produced some large hail, too.

“We had lots of reports of loonie-sized hail and some reports even up to the size of tennis balls,” he said.

Rain drenched areas north of Southey. Vrolijk said radar indicates more than 100 millimetres fell overnight. That’s close to four inches.

He said the thousands of campers in Craven for Country Thunder Saskatchewan were spared of any big storm. The festival has seen its fair share of storms in the past.

In terms of whether Saturday has any more storms brewing, Vrolijk indicated it’s unlikely.

“We’re good on the thunderstorms at this point. We’re all done. We used it all up,” he said.

Instead of storms, Saskatchewan will bake under the heat. As of Friday morning, heat warnings were issued for most of the province and those remained in place Saturday.

Daytime highs are forecast to be in the low to mid-30 C range with overnight lows barely dipping below 20 C. It’ll be humid too.

Vrolijk expects the heat warnings to lift sometime on Monday.