A tornado touched down in southeastern Alberta on Thursday afternoon, and Steven Hougen stopped harvesting just in time.
Hougen and his brother were harvesting at their family farm, near Foremost, when they looked towards the sky around noon Thursday.
“We saw it coming, parked our combines and got out as quick as we could,” said Hougen.
The men jumped in their truck and Hougen drove away from the twister as his brother shot some pretty spectacular video.
“It was a little scary for sure,” Hougen said.
“I was a little nervous.”
Hougen said the tornado touched down in front of the combine he had been in minutes earlier, but the twister didn’t cause much damage.
“It didn’t really damage our crops. There’s nothing major for damage,” he said.
Environment Canada confirmed a tornado touched down near Foremost around 11:55 a.m. Thursday.
The weather service received multiple videos and pictures of the tornado but said no damage has been reported.
Environment Canada estimated the tornado’s wind speed was 90 to 120 km/h.
Hougen’s father has been farming in the area for four decades and no one in the family has ever seen anything like what they experienced, and captured, on Thursday.
Foremost is located about 115 kilometres southeast of Lethbridge.
The area was under a severe thunderstorm watch for much of Thursday afternoon.
