Severe thunderstorm watches for southeast Sask.

It appears stormy weather will return to southern Saskatchewan on Sunday afternoon.

At about 10 a.m., Environment Canada issued severe thunderstorm watches for the southeast corner of the province, covering areas from Carnduff to Watrous and Humboldt.

Under the weather office’s terminology, a “watch” means conditions a favourable for severe weather.

According to Environment Canada meteorologist Brad Vrolijk, thunderstorms should develop in the Assiniboia region. Then, they’ll be on the move.

“Pretty much for the entire Trans Canada Highway corridor, through Regina and east, all the way to the Manitoba border, we’ll see a chance for thunderstorms and some of these thunderstorms definitely could be severe,” Vrolijk said.

The worst of the storm happen in the mid-afternoon to early evening, crossing the Manitoba border around midnight.

Because the storm is moving relatively fast, Vrolijk said rainfall isn’t the big worry.

“While local amounts of anywhere from 10 to 30 millimetres will be possible, we’re not expecting anything like the situations where you have very slow-moving thunderstorms that produce 50, 75, even 100 millimetres,” he said.

However, large hailstones between two to four centimetres in diameter could fall, something he calls “fairly significant.”

As well, wind gusts could exceed 100 kilometres per hour.

Tornadoes are unlikely but cannot be ruled out.

“The risk is so low, it’s not really considered a primary threat from these thunderstorms today but people should certainly stay aware of any alerts issued later in the day,” Vrolijk said.