'It was pretty epic': U of M students see seven tornadoes on storm-chasing trip

Tornado hunting in Manitoba CTV’s Katherine Dow talks about a tornado chasing course available at the University of Manitoba.

The many twists and turns of Manitoba’s weather gave one group of university students the experience of a lifetime.

Every other year, the University of Manitoba offers a course in storm chasing, and this year there was no shortage of material, with students getting to see multiple tornadoes in a single day.

“Normally we expect about three active days in our seven-day trip, but this time we had storms on every day except the last one,” said Patrick McCarthy, the course’s instructor, in an interview on Monday.

“On the second last day, we saw seven tornadoes…it was pretty epic from a storm-chasing perspective.”

The course, which was created in 2005, involves 30 hours of class time where students learn about how storms work, the tools that are used in storm prediction, and all the other aspects that make up storm chasing. They then get the opportunity to take a seven-day field trip to put what they’ve learned to use, “That’s what they’re looking for when they’re out in the field is to try to find all those ingredients, whether they’re there,” McCarthy said.

“If everything’s coming together and if their predictions are correct and they’re in the city in the right spot, they can actually get to see the majesty of the environment.”

Eric Zwarich, one of the students in the course, said he was drawn to the class due to his passion for storm chasing.

“This was right up my alley. My degree is atmospheric science, so this was a great opportunity and a very fun experience,” he said in an interview on Monday.

Zwarich said the most memorable part of the field trip was seeing seven tornadoes in one day.

“It was approaching the cut-off because it was our second last day so we were hopeful to get one, but to have many it was a pretty thrilling experience,” he said.

Since the course started in 2005, there have only been a few years when students were able to see tornadoes on the field trip, making this year’s trip especially notable.

McCarthy said he’s been storm chasing for a long time, and the most tornadoes he’s seen in a day is eight.

“Seven is really close to that, so for me, it was quite something, but for the students, they are probably still overcome by what they saw,” McCarthy said.

He said he hopes students walk away from the course understanding the majesty of the weather.

“Learning how to predict the weather is one thing, learning about the details of how storms work is one thing, but learning about things like radars, satellites, all these different tools and be able to bring all that together and then actually work in the field is really quite something,” McCarthy said.

- With files from CTV’s Katherine Dow.