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Tornado touches down at Davisburg home

A tornado touched down at a family home northeast of Okotoks Sunday, leaving a hole in the roof, scattering debris across the property and even tossing a large water tank several hundred metres.

A tornado touched down at a family home northeast of Okotoks Sunday, leaving a hole in the roof, scattering debris across the property and even tossing a large water tank several hundred metres.

What mattered most is everyone was safe because the damage can be fixed said the home’s owner Darlene Wipf,.

“We just surveyed and hugged each other and were grateful that we were all together,” she said.

It was around 2 p.m. on July 17 when Wipf and her family were outside their Davisburg-area home along with their neighbour’s children when a large storm swept in quickly.

Her son Casseus watched as the funnel cloud formed over their home.

“I went in and told my sisters there was a funnel cloud outside and they didn’t believe me at first,” he said. “When my mom came in and she told us there was a funnel cloud, then they said you were right Cass.”

Casseus said it was frightening to watch as it descended from the clouds.

His mother saw it too and didn’t want them to be scared as she hustled them indoors.

“I tried to downplay it and I said ‘this time of year, we see these things so don’t be too uptight,’” said Darlene. “They were all in the house by then and we sent the youngsters [from] next door home.”

She told her children to go into the basement and went upstairs to retrieve some items from the front deck and close windows and doors in the home.

It was too late. The tornado quickly dropped and touched down.

Darlene stayed upstairs to make sure her neighbour’s children were safe and wasn’t able to make it downstairs. She ended up laying on the kitchen floor as the tornado swung around her home.

She estimates the tornado touched the ground a couple of times and lasted a few minutes.

“We were hearing a lot of banging and crashing so maybe it did seem like a long time,” she said. “It moved around the whole house so I couldn’t see if it was touching or going up and down but it circled the whole house.”

When the storm passed, Darlene said they went out to check on their horses, which were fine and to check on their neighbours.

The storm damaged their home, a hay shed and tossed a large plastic water tank several hundred meters away. It left debris strewn across their property and was strong enough to bend metal and drive a piece of wood straight into the ground.

Their children’s play structure was left smashed on the driveway, the storm left a hole in the roof of the house and it lifted the deck extending out from the back of the home from the main floor.

Amazingly, Darlene said, it didn’t break any windows on their house.

At least one neighbouring home had roof damage from the storm.

Darlene said it could’ve been much worse and they are counting their blessings. She said her insurance was sending over an adjuster to assess the damage Monday morning.

“The important people and animals were safe and the rest of it is stuff that can be fixed,” she said.

The storm capped off a weekend of wild weather that saw several reports of funnel clouds in the Okotoks area and heavy rain that lead to a high streamflow advisory for the Sheep River and Three Point Creek.

Dan Kulak, meteorologist with Environment Canada, said they were aware of a tornado in the area and there were multiple reports of funnel clouds in the area.

“It was a very unstable environment yesterday afternoon with funnel clouds forming in numerous locations and one that just happened to touch down,” he said. “It probably lasted a minute or maybe two minutes.”

Kulak said it said it was a cold-core tornado, not a larger super-cell storm, which is usually weak and short-lived.

He said a low-pressure system that swept in from B.C. was the main driver behind stormy conditions over the weekend.

Kulak said the difference in temperatures between the surface and upper levels in the atmosphere was the main factor.

“If you have relatively warm air near the ground and relatively cool air aloft that’s then you set up a pattern like a pot of water on a stove,” he said.

He said Alberta sees eight tornados a year on average, but they are far less likely to cause damage than lightning or windstorms.

Kulak said weather conditions are changing away from the upper-low pressure systems that have fed recent this weekend’s weather.

Environment Canada issued a severe thunderstorm watch for the Foothills area Monday morning, with the likelihood of hail, strong winds, heavy rain and the potential for a tornado.

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