British Columbia’s first tornado of the year touched down near the municipality of Vanderhoof earlier this week.
A report from Western University’s Northern Tornadoes Project said a landspout-type tornado occurred on Wednesday afternoon near the community of approximately 4,000 people, located about 80 kilometres west of Prince George.
It said two videos of the tornado were captured, and no damage has been reported.
Ross Macdonald, a senior meteorologist with Environment Canada, confirmed that a tornado occurred near Vanderhoof around 1:30 p.m. PT Wednesday.
He said it was the first tornado of the year in British Columbia and was rated an EF-0 — the lowest measure on the enhanced Fujita scale — which means it was very weak.
Macdonald said the landspout tornado was likely generated by weak rotation under rapidly growing clouds or weak thunderstorms.
“Generally, when we speak of these landspout tornadoes, they don’t usually cause significant damage, but they can still be dangerous as they can topple trees,” he said.
