Saskatchewan’s southeast has yet again been battered by severe weather — the latest wave of storm activity involving a severe tornado near Oxbow.

Tanner Churchill was out for dinner celebrating his mom’s birthday Tuesday evening at Sandugo Bistro in Oxbow, located 240 kilometres southeast of Regina.

It was at this moment he received an emergency alert on his phone.

“Everybody kind of looked at each other and was like, ‘What the hell?’ Then I got up because I wanted to see what was going on,” Churchill said, referring to when he left the restaurant to take a look outside.

“We all just stood out here on the balcony and watched it for a minute or two and came back inside. It started raining and hailing soon after.”

Churchill captured the moment on his phone and called his childhood best friend Dustin Monsinger.

The two got in their cars and chased the storm together.

Numerous posts to social media from that evening captured what appeared to be a significant supercell tornado near Oxbow.

Footage submitted to CTV News captured what appeared to be a cone-shaped cloud forming. A separate video depicted what appeared to be a tornado touching down.

“I was in shock honestly,” Churchill said. “I had never seen a tornado that big or anything like that before and seeing it that close to town, it was scary. I was worried for Oxbow because it did look like it was coming this way. I’m glad we got missed.”

Monsinger said he received various phone calls from members of his family to stay safe, but insisted on going closer to the tornado.

“As soon as I got the alert, I got phone calls from one of my family members asking me to stay in the house in the basement,” Monsinger told CTV News.

“They were all telling me to stay home and I told them straight up … I’m not staying home for this. I’m going out. I’m going to go chase it.”

Although thrilled to have witnessed a tornado, both said they are happy the town didn’t receive significant damages compared to communities in the area.

“It’s definitely pretty impactful … the fire department, everybody’s really good for getting out there immediately and trying to help as much as they can,” Churchill noted.

“Especially with the grocery store because the closest one is in Estevan, which is a little further away you got to drive to if you can’t get any groceries here,” Monsinger added, referring to the town’s only grocery store being temporarily closed due to the damages from the storm.

Investigation underway

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), the thunderstorm cell responsible for the tornado developed over North Dakota before drifting into southeast Saskatchewan.

Both ECCC and the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) confirmed an investigation was underway into a tornado that touched down in the Oxbow area.

Teams with NTP were already in the area investigating a tornado that touched down near Hirsch on June 7.

That tornado has been rated as an EF-1 while the Oxbow tornado received a preliminary rating of EF3 from NTP.

If confirmed, the Oxbow tornado would represent the strongest tornado in Canada since 2023, when an EF4 struck near Didsbury, Alta.

Both ECCC and the NTP made reference to damage in the area, with one farm being directly hit.

“The confirmed tornado that affected the Oxbow, SK area east of Estevan unfortunately directly hit at least one farmstead and caused major damage,” the NTP said in its update.

“So far no reports of injuries, thankfully.”

ECCC meteorologist Terri Lang told CTV News Wednesday there’s common misconceptions on how experts rate the severity of tornadoes.

“It’s a common belief that we rate tornadoes on how they look, and that’s not true. We rate tornadoes on the damage that they do,” she explained.

“This looks like it was on the ground for a fair time, so it’s going to take time to assess the entire path of where it went and the damage that it did.”

Lang noted that cleanup efforts can actually delay or negatively impact the investigation.

“Because we’re in Saskatchewan, as soon as somebody’s farm is hit, everybody rushes out and tries to clean and help, and all that kind of stuff. Sometimes that takes away a little bit of the evidence, so it’s really imperative to get out there as fast as you can,” she said, noting that physical damage is used along with radar images, and reports from the public to complete a tornado assessment.

Tornadoes in Saskatchewan

• 2017 - 12
• 2018 - 20
• 2019 - 14
• 2020 - 7
• 2021 - 11
• 2022 - 25
• 2023 - 1
• 2024 - 18
• 2025 - 23

Source: Northern Tornadoes Project

Drought conditions in recent years has led to a decline in tornadoes - due to the role moisture and humidity play in creating severe weather.

“This is the time of year that we do get tornadoes, big hail, winds, all that kind of stuff. So it’s important that people sort of remember that,” Lang said.

“Past few years, we’ve had some dry summers, and we don’t get a lot of tornadoes during dry summers, so this is more typical of what we’re seeing.”

A night of severe weather

The tornado came at the climax of an evening filled with severe weather warnings.

Golf ball-sized hail and localized flooded was reported in Regina, while the communities of Weyburn and Indian Head both reported 30 millimetres of rain.

Much of Manitoba was under tornado watches Tuesday evening while several areas, such as St. Anne and Otterburne, were issued tornado warnings.

More than 100 km/h wind gusts and torrential rainfall were also reported through southern Manitoba.

On Wednesday at 11:35 a.m., ECCC issued a special weather statement for southern Saskatchewan, with conditions favourable for the development of funnel clouds due to a low pressure system.