Tornado warning for southeastern Saskatchewan ends

Environment Canada lifted its tornado warning for areas of southeastern Saskatchewan late Tuesday afternoon.

Just after 5 p.m., the weather service issued the warning for the Estevan-Weyburn-Radville-Milestone area. The warning was lifted about an hour later.

Photographs posted to numerous social media accounts showed a funnel cloud in the Estevan area.

Possible tornado west of estevan #skstorm 502 pm pic.twitter.com/z4Ko9fmjdt

— Craig Boehm (@Skstormchaser) August 4, 2020

The tornado warning was issued hours after severe thunderstorm watches and warnings were put in place for areas across Saskatchewan.

“We’ve been looking at the development of severe thunderstorms along a trough line in southeastern Saskatchewan,” Environment Canada meteorologist Alysa Pederson said late Tuesday afternoon. “Those storms have formed and they do have the potential to cause severe weather. That would be wind, heavy rain or large hail or, in some cases, a tornado.

“When we start seeing people reporting there is rotation, we can see it on the radar and we start getting reports of funnel clouds in the area and one leads to another. If you’re getting a storm that’s strong enough to produce a funnel cloud, there’s the potential today to produce touchdown.”

Pederson said meteorologists could see on radar the storm that moved through Estevan had what she called “significant rotation in the mid-levels.”

The Estevan-Weyburn area was under a severe thunderstorm watch as of Tuesday evening.

Watches also were in place for areas around Regina, Fort Qu’Appelle, Indian Head, Lumsden, Pilot Butte, Carlyle, Oxbow, Carnduff, Bienfait, Stoughton, Moosomin, Grenfell, Kipling, Wawota, Yorkton, Melville and Esterhazy.

Along with the thunderstorm watches and warnings, heat warnings were issued earlier in the day for much of Saskatchewan.

The heat warnings covered areas around Lloydminster, The Battlefords, Unity, Prince Albert, Shellbrook, Melfort, Tisdale, La Ronge, Hudson Bay, Porcupine Plain, La Loche and Buffalo Narrows.

Environment Canada said the heat warnings are expected to remain in place for the next two days.