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Southeast Saskatchewan has been dealing with a string of damaging storms this spring, with three severe weather systems moving through the region in just over a week.
Jenny Hagan, a storm chaser and severe weather specialist, said the area’s geographic and the jet stream are both playing major roles, with a fast-moving storm track repeatedly creating in the conditions needed for severe thunderstorms, heavy hail and strong winds.
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Hagan joined The Evan Bray Show on Wednesday to talk about the recent storms and the need for a better weather warning system to track what communities are and aren’t in danger.
Erin Brown captured footage of a tornado south of Oxbow on June 9, 2026. (Erin Brown/Facebook)
Listen to the full interview with Hagan, or read the transcript below:
The following questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
EVAN BRAY: What is it about that southeast part of the province that, again this morning, is assessing the damage after yet another storm?
JENNY HAGAN: The topography in that area, as well as where the jet stream sets where it pulls up that really nice, moist, warm air really does fuel extra thunderstorm development, and then you can see in areas like this multiple days of severe weather outbreaks. You get all those storms coming up from North Dakota and moving into the area, so it’s a very active track in that area.
What are polygon warnings?
HAGAN: Polygon warnings are something that the U.S. has used for many years, and what that does is it narrows down the warning area, rather than what our current system is, where it covers a very large area; a region. This refines it so people that are actually in the path of that storm will get the warning, rather than people that are behind the storm that are actually at no risk of being hit by those tornadoes. Over the weekend, Weyburn got the tornado warning for the Scouting storm, but they were actually at no risk at all of being hit by that tornado, because it was east of the town and it was moving northeast. It kind of hurts the believably, because you’re getting these tornado warnings and you’re looking out and it’s blue sky, and you’re not getting hit by anything.
In regards to to weather predictions, is this something that Environment Canada has talked about implementing in Canada?
HAGAN: We were supposed to see the polygon warning system originally roll out this summer, but it was delayed. They’re hoping by next summer we will have that warning system in place, and I’m hoping that they get on that pretty quickly, because it’s definitely going to help the credibility, and also just people listening to those warnings, because especially after the weekend where people’s phones were going off nonstop with these severe weather warnings and tornado warnings, and not being hit by those storms. If it hits their area again, they might not pay attention to that warning coming on their phone.
Can you define what tornadoes, twisters and plow winds are, and there differences?
HAGAN: We’ve got two different kinds of tornadoes that touch down in Saskatchewan. One is a landspout tornado, which is a tornado that develops off of a non-super-cell thunderstorm. When you get these cold-core final warnings that go out, it’s kind of those systems that throw out these landspout tornadoes. They’re not super destructive, but people can still be injured in storms like that. And then we’ve got our super-cell type tornadoes, and those are our highly destructive tornadoes that really have a lot of high wind damage, and can be 130 kilometres or more out per hour. The most common damage, actually, in Saskatchewan is from plow winds, and most people, when a plow wind hits, do not believe it’s not a tornado, because it can cause massive amounts of destruction over a huge area. I have seen plow winds rip houses clean off their foundations, rip roofs off, and those ones are usually formed off a long line of storms that form together, and they throw out these huge wind gusts in front. And I guess the difference, when you see the damage, is if it’s all kind of laying in the one direction, being blown out, that’s likely a plow wind. When you see things thrown in all sorts of directions, and that tends to be more of a tornadic type.
Is there a difference in the duration? Do you see a plow wind last longer as opposed to a tornado, or can they be similar in length?
HAGAN: A plow wind can actually cover many communities. It could even go across the whole province, but tornadoes are usually a little bit more refined for the damage, in a more narrow path. But we have seen tornadoes that have been on the ground for long periods of time as well. In Tilston, Manitoba, I think that was on the ground off and on for about four hours. It can cause damage in many different ways. They usually lift and come back down, so it’s a little bit more sporadic of damage, compared to a plow wind.
