Tornadoes

F3 and F4 Tornadoes in Saskatchewan

Canadian Plains Research Center

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Damage suffered in Kamsack from an F4 tornado, August 1944.

Kamsack Powerhouse Museum

Damage suffered in Kamsack from an F4 tornado, August 1944.

Kamsack Powerhouse Museum

Damage suffered in Kamsack from an F4 tornado, August 1944.

Kamsack Powerhouse Museum

Tornadoes are occasionally produced by severe thunderstorms in Saskatchewan. The province averages about fifteen tornadoes reported annually, although there is a large annual variation. About one strong tornado (F2 or greater on the six-point Fujita scale), capable of inflicting major damage, can be expected each year; some years there are none, while in others several may be experienced. Tornado season runs from May to August. Saskatchewan’s most damaging tornado, rated F4, hit Regina on the afternoon of June 30, 1912, causing twenty-eight deaths in the city, hundreds of injuries, and huge property losses (see Regina Cyclone). The only other F4-rated case was at Kamsack on August 9, 1944; it resulted in three dead, forty-four injured, and many buildings in the town destroyed. Fortunately, such events have been rare. Most of the province’s reported tornadoes are weak (F0 or F1) and do only limited damage; many touch down only on fields or woodland. In recent years, forecasting and public awareness have improved, and since 1945 only three tornado fatalities have occurred in the province. This is no cause for complacency, however: an area of Narrow Hills Provincial Park, northwest of Nipawin, was visited by a tornado on July 2, 2003, which destroyed several residential trailers, turned over a tractor-trailer unit, and caused a number of injuries; the storm also dropped baseball-sized hail that is typical of tornado-producing thunderstorms. This event occurred at latitude 54°N—a reminder that tornadoes have been reported from the province’s forested northlands as well as from the prairie.

Alec Paul