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Summary

There Was A Huge Tornado In Manitoba & It Threw Vehicles Around (VIDEO)

It was a giant!
Contributor

There has been some intense weather across Canada this summer, but the Manitoba tornado of August 2020 might just take the top spot. The storm touched down on Friday and was powerful enough to throw a few vehicles around. Some ambitious storm chasers also got great footage of it.

According to the Manitoba Tornado Watch Facebook page, Environment Canada issued a warning on August 7 at 7:49 p.m. central time. 

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The agency said that heavy thunderstorms had the potential to turn into a tornado and produce damaging winds. It was reported as moving southeast at about 30 km/h.

They noted that a storm like this could produce damaging winds, as well as golf-ball-sized hail and intense rainfall.

Environment Canada also added that this was a "potentially life-threatening situation," and warned anybody in the vicinity to seek shelter in a strong building.

A funnel cloud eventually formed and touched down just south of Virden, according to several tweets from storm chasers who were documenting the event.

One of them said that it was strong enough to toss around a couple of vehicles caught in its path.

"It threw two different vehicles, one into the ditch. There were two occupants trapped in there," Sean Schofer told CTV News, "plus there were downed power lines around the vehicle also, so that hampered the rescue operation."

STARS air ambulance tweeted later that evening, "STAR 7 (Winnipeg) has been dispatched for a Scene Call Emergency in the Virden, MB area."

"This was a major tornado. A strong one, maybe an EF3 or EF4," storm chaser Aaron Jayjack told CTV News, citing the Enhanced Fujita Scale used for measuring wind intensity.

According to Environment Canada, an EF3 tornado would produce winds anywhere from roughly 225 to 265 km/h, while an EF4 would be around 270 to 310 km/h.

Earlier today, Manitoba Hydro tweeted that they are currently assessing the damage.

While they have restored power to some people in the area, they said they will have to replace some poles and powerlines that were knocked down by the storm.

Ontario had its own tornado warnings last week, but didn't see anything as intense as this.

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    • Colin Leggett was a Contributing Editor with Narcity Canada. He wrote on the national news team for over a year and contributed to coverage of the 2019 Canadian Federal Election, as well as the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Colin has a Bachelor's Degree in Communications and Cultural Theory from McMaster University, as well as a graduate certificate in Television Writing and Producing from Humber College. He is an avid consumer of politics and pop culture, having written about everything from food to television to Canada-U.S. relations.

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