EDMONTON \u2014 A preliminary report on a weekend tornado in central Alberta says its winds were so violent they picked up a 10-tonne farm combine and tossed it half the length of a football field.<\/p>\n
EDMONTON \u2014 A preliminary report on a weekend tornado in central Alberta says its winds were so violent they picked up a 10-tonne farm combine and tossed it half the length of a football field.<\/p>\n
“(The combine) then rolled for another 50 to 100 metres after that,” said the report, issued Tuesday by the Northern Tornadoes Project.<\/p>\n
The report follows up on ground and drone surveys on the tornado that ripped through the rural area between the towns of Carstairs and Didsbury on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Researchers rated the twister as a four on the Enhanced Fujita, or EF, scale of wind-damage intensity, one short of the maximum rating of five.<\/p>\n
The storm destroyed three homes and damaged seven more, downed power lines, killed livestock, shredded trees and damaged vehicles.<\/p>\n
The report said there was one injury \u2014 a cut to a first responder.<\/p>\n
The estimated maximum wind speed was 275 kilometres per hour along a 15-kilometre path that stretched as wide as 620 metres.<\/p>\n
It was the fiercest tornado to hit Alberta since the infamous \u201cBlack Friday\u201d F4 storm in 1987, which killed 27 people and destroyed hundreds of homes in Edmonton.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s the second EF4 storm to hit Canada since it adopted the EF damage scale a decade ago.<\/p>\n
The first EF4 struck Alonsa, Man., in 2018, killing one person while destroying houses, farms and cabins.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Didsbury EF4 tornado enters some rarefied territory among Canadian tornado events,\u201d said the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cThough this was a climatologically significant tornado, it thankfully won’t enter the list of Canada’s top 10 ‘worst’ tornadoes due to the single minor injury and limited property damage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northern Tornadoes Project, affiliated with Western University in London, Ont., completed the report with Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Arctic Storm Prediction Centre.<\/p>\n
Area resident Elisa Humphreys recounted how she managed to flee just before the twister levelled her home and another building on her property.<\/p>\n
Scores of volunteers showed up the next day with gift cards and helped find mementoes in the wreckage.<\/p>\n
Environment and Climate Change Canada said Alberta typically sees 15 tornadoes per year, based on data collected between 1980 and 2009.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So far this year, the province has had up to 13.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n