‘There was debris spinning’: Eyewitness shares close encounter with funnel cloud in Manitoba

A violent weather system brought high winds and heavy rain in some parts of Manitoba. Alex Karpa has the details.

It was an experience unlike any other for Brian Penner.

On his way home from work, he got caught in the violent storm that hit parts of southern Manitoba, including Winnipeg, Wednesday evening.

“It was very cool,” he said. “It kind of happened out of nowhere.”

There were several reports of funnel clouds and golf-ball sized hail from witnesses who posted photos and video online.

Penner was one of them. He is an amateur storm chaser who loves capturing violent weather activity.

He says this storm was too good to pass up.

“This storm that was passing overtop was spinning pretty good and I was like, ‘Hey, it’s an opportunity for my storm chase on my way home,’” he said. “You don’t get this opportunity too often.”

Weather officials from Environment and Climate Change Canada have not confirmed whether this supercell produced any tornadoes. An investigation into this storm is ongoing.

Penner, however, believes he saw one.

“When it crossed the road in front of me, between Dugald and Anola, probably a mile ahead of me, there was debris spinning as it crossed the road,” he said. “Even though you never saw the funnel touch the ground, obviously there was some circulation or something on the ground from it.”

Tornado warnings were issued in several municipalities Wednesday, including the RM’s of St. Andrews, East St. Paul, and Springfield.

Meteorologist Crawford Luke says the severity of this storm was triggered by hot weather and a very humid air mass.

“When the storms finally did fire off, they had all of this fuel that really went for it,” he said Wednesday morning. “We also had a bit of wind shear in the area yesterday. We had strong winds aloft with the jet stream.”

Luke says events like these are not new to southern Manitoba.

“I wouldn’t describe it as rare in the sense that it is specific to Winnipeg,” he says. “It’s part of our usually summertime weather.”

Man. tornado confirmed: Northern Tornadoes Project

Storm chaser Cory Penner captured video of what appeared to be a tornado in southwestern Manitoba on Tuesday.

He was in Saskatchewan following a storm that he was hoping would produce a tornado. When he got back to Manitoba, he found another storm system and was able to capture this tornado from a distance.

“First we saw a wispy little tornado,” he said. “Then I saw another wispy tornado come down, very brief. And then we stopped, set up the real camera, and then that’s where we got that nice thick tornado, which only lasted a couple seconds. And then it was done.”

It’s been a fairly quiet year with just 36 confirmed tornadoes. This is way down from 2024, which had 129, the second highest number on record in Canada.

Saskatchewan, compared to other provinces, has had its fair share of tornadoes, with 17 confirmed so far this summer, including a whopping eight in one day in June.

As for the rest of the country, John Hanesiak, a professor of environment and geography at the University of Manitoba, says there are a number of factors that are leading to fewer tornadoes this year.

“We haven’t seen the four big ingredients that we need on any particular day that sort of come together as often as we normally do,” he said.

David Sills, the director of the Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University in London, Ont., says active wildfires could also be playing a role in the lowered activity.

“The more smoke we have, the less energy we have for thunderstorms,” he said. “It’s been pretty quiet and in years that we have had more fires; we have noticed this pattern where the number of thunderstorms and the number of tornadoes decreases.”

As for Penner, he is happy he was able to capture an intense weather event.

“I was in the right place at the right time,” he said. “The chances of that happening are so miniscule.”

“It was very neat. When nobody gets hurt, and you get to see it go through a field, then that’s exciting for everybody.”