What began early in the day with some rumbling thunder and a brief hail shower in the Swift Current area, ended up culminating in a pair of tornadoes and weather warnings throughout the western and central half of the province.

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Alysa Pederson, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

"So in Alberta, we have a whole bunch of cold air; I guess Alberta and BC where there's a lot of thunderstorm activity going on. And then in Manitoba, we had a lot of hot humid air and Saskatchewan kind of got stuck in the middle. So that's kind of why it was such a widespread severe event yesterday."

Essentially, two weather systems met like a pair of clashing armies with Saskatchewan skies as their battlefield.

As it progressed throughout the day, with watches and warnings escalating and then being altered or cancelled seemingly every few minutes, the active skies strengthened; culminating with a tornado watch for much of the southwest and a pair of tornadoes being spotted near Assiniboia and Kincaid.

"Mid-afternoon we did get some pretty intense thunderstorms developing just to the East of swift current and that is the thunderstorm that did ultimately produce a couple of tornadoes as it moved through. The first one being near Glenbain to Kincaid Saskatchewan around 4:30 PM. Then again at around 6:20, it's looking like we have another report of another, a little bit more brief tornado moving through there just South of Assiniboia."

 

 

By the end, the weather instability stretched as far North as Key Lake all the way down to the U.S. border; effectively half of the province.

Pederson says that while that isn't necessarily rare, it is more of a spring pattern than a summer pattern.

She added that it does look like that instability does look as though it's going to be holding in the area for the week ahead, meaning we are likely to see those active skies continue. But she cautions that it's not possible to accurately tell how severe it might get beyond a couple of days in advance.

"We can't really speak to how severe thunderstorms might be in the area beyond day one and day two because that's when we see all of those ingredients coming together."

Swift Current Online will continue to keep its eyes on the sky.

If you see severe weather, share it with Swift Current Online by tagging us on Twitter @SCOLnews, but only after you have ensured your own safety.