Environment Canada has confirmed the first Canadian tornado in 2019 as an EF-0 probable tornado from Wednesday, April 24th.
The agency states that they received multiple credible reports of a tornado including tornado damage about 7km north of Peers, Alberta on a private farm. Peers is roughly 180km west of Edmonton and is just east of Edson, Alberta.
CTV News reports that "Environment Canada have confirmed that it will go in their records as a verified tornado."
Environment Canada has classified the twister as a landspout tornado, with wind speeds between 90 and 130 kilometres an hour.
Landspout tornadoes can form from almost any thunderstorm. A landspout tornado is caused by a thunderstorm with weak rotation near the ground that is stretched by the development/growing of showers or more commonly, thunderstorms. This weak movement of rotation is enough to cause a landspout tornado. Landspout tornadoes are often more weak than a supercell tornado.
Because of the quick nature of landspout tornadoes and the timing of when they often form, they are more difficult to catch on radar compared to supercell tornadoes.
Alberta averages between 8 and 12 tornadoes each year. April tornadoes are rare across Alberta and Canada although this isn't the earliest tornado on record for the province. The most common tornado for this title is from April 13 in 2016 although Environment Canada has confirmed they have tornado records from February in the 1930s for the province.
Comments