VIDEO: 10 Sask. communities report tornado damage following severe storms

The severe storms that ripped through Saskatchewan starting Friday afternoon and evening have left at least 10 communities reporting tornado touchdowns.

By early Saturday morning, the only confirmed hit was in Dundurn.

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Environment Canada meteorologist James Colangelo said that tornado came through around 4 p.m. on Friday.

“But, we’ve had multiple reports of either funnel clouds or tornadoes at multiple other places across the province,” he said.

A storm that developed just west of North Battleford and moved east, brought reports of tornadoes in the Petrofka and Waldheim-Rosthern area, as well as in Hague and Smuts, Colangelo said.

The other storm that developed just south of the Bridge City, moving east around the same time, brought potential tornadoes to Sunset Estates, Colonsay, Viscount and Plunkett, he said.

Environment Canada is also investigating a possible tornado that hit around 9 p.m. in Cupar.

Despite the multiple tornado reports, though, Colangelo said the same one could have hit multiple communities, so it doesn’t necessarily mean there were 10 different tornadoes.

Colangelo said Dundurn didn’t experience severe damage from the storm, but the same can’t be said for other communities.

The first damage report came in from Speers at around 2:30 p.m., with multiple structures impacted, he said.

Richard Zipchen lives in Speers and said entire trees were ripped out.

“There’s trees uprooted that are 120 years old,” he said, “pulled out from the roots like God pulled them right up like a weed and threw them everywhere.”

While no homes were majorly damaged, “almost every outbuilding in the village is to the ground,” he said.

“A lot of neighbours have buildings in other neighbours’ yards,” according to Zipchen.

Speers also lost power for roughly nine hours, Zipchen said, regaining it back after midnight on Saturday.

Then, north of Waldheim, Environment Canada received reports of, “power lines down, multiple houses damaged and multiple large trees uprooted, and damage to roofs and buildings as well.”

Also in the Waldheim area, reports came in of “very large hail” ranging from, “ping pong ball all the way up to baseball size,” Colangelo said.

Despite being with Environment Canada for a decade, Colangelo said in those 10 years he’s “never seen anything like this.”

“It is quite rare to see an outbreak like this,” he said, particularly because of how long these storms lasted and how far they travelled.

According to the meteorologist, this summer Saskatchewan’s had the “perfect ingredients” for severe thunderstorms, bringing with them the possibility of tornadoes — and we’re not in the clear, yet.

Another round of storms is expected for late Saturday afternoon and evening, Colangelo said, similar to what happened Friday night.

These ones will likely form in the Saskatoon area and north, into central Saskatchewan, bringing large hail and, again, the possibility of tornadoes.

— with files from 980 CJME’s Andrew Shepherd

Read more:

• Photos: Saskatchewan storms drop damaging tornadoes
• Tips to survive Saskatchewan’s potentially record-breaking heat wave
• SPSA grounds three bird dog wildfire planes after deadly N.W.T. crash