A weak tornado was seen east of Red Deer in central Alberta Wednesday afternoon. Late in the afternoon, Environment Canada meteorologists tracked a severe thunderstorm that was producing a tornado north of Stettler.
The weather agency said its preliminary classification shows it was a landspout. “So there are two different types of tornadoes — we have a landspout tornado and a supercell tornado,” said Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Jesse Wagar.
She said landspouts are twisters triggered by thunderstorms that develop quickly, and are generally smaller and weaker than supercell tornadoes.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes a landspout as a “tornado with a narrow, rope-like condensation funnel that forms while the thunderstorm cloud is still growing and there is no rotating updraft — the spinning motion originates near the ground.” Wagar added they are often brief because they’re not driven by the internal thunderstorm dynamics seen in supercells. “We did have both environments in Alberta today,” Wager said Wednesday. “There’s portions of east-central Alberta that had the environment for these types of landspout tornadoes.