Two farmers had a frightening encounter with a tornado on Thursday afternoon as a funnel cloud touched down in a neighbouring field and they successfully captured the incident with their phones.
Brothers Andrew and Steven Hougen spent the morning combining on a farm near Foremost, Alberta, southeast of Lethbridge, when they noticed an oncoming storm.
“As farmers, we watch radar all the time and it look like the rain was more to the north but at the very end of the south end of the storm building is where the funnel cloud started,” said Steven Hougen. “My brother spotted it first when we were combining and we kinda just kept an eye on it and as it got closer we figured we better get out of there."
“We have seen funnel clouds before but it’s unusual for any of them to touch down,” said Andrew. “We started to see some dirt spinning on the ground, probably about five miles to the west of us, and we started to get nervous.”
Shortly before noon, Steven drove away from the farm while his brother Andrew recorded the tornado from the back of the truck.
“I would be lying if I told you it wasn't scary,” said Steven. “As we’re driving away and trying to get away from it as it was kind of following us. The truck was not very stable as I wasn't sure how strong the winds were. You never know if it's going to tip your truck over.”
Environment Canada categorized the tornado as an EF 0 with recorded wind speed of approximately 100 kilometres an hour. The tornado tore a 15 kilometre long path of destruction along fields of lentils and other crops south of Foremost.
“The videos don’t really do it justice,” said Andrew. “It was just awesome how big and powerful it was.”
There have been no reported injuries and no major property damage.
