When Brooke Allen and Donna Swenarchuk looked out the window of their Amber Trails home Saturday, they felt a chill.
"I could see it and it was scary," says Allen. "My [grandma] kept telling me that it won't touch down and don't be scared, so I just tried to ignore it."
But the sight was hard to ignore. Donna Swenarchuk says if the funnel cloud had gotten any closer she would have hid her family in the basement.
"It's scary," says Swenarchuk. "Because you know that if it touches - who's it going to hit?"
Funnel clouds were reported across Southern Manitoba on Saturday, from Amber Trails to Steinbach. Though no damage was reported Environment Canada confirms one twister did touch down in St. Adolphe. The agency says the twister landed in a field and picked up some dust before disappearing.
"I didn't know it happened until someone opened the paper and told me," says Troy Jasper who lives in St. Adolphe.
Environment Canada says a weak low pressure system combined with heating and a moist, unstable air mass to create ideal conditions for the funnel clouds to form. A tornado watch was issued from Brandon to the Manitoba/Ontario border and as far north as Gimli, before being lifted Saturday night.
Even where tornadoes didn't touch down severe weather took residents by surprise. In the Woodlands area hail pelted cars and houses. In Warren, so much hail fell from the sky the ground was completely white.
Environment Canada says the severe weather may just be starting in Manitoba because the provincial tornado season typically starts in June.
The last time a tornado touched down in Manitoba the wind snapped trees in Oakbank, during the month of July 2010. Canada's strongest twister, an F-5, touched down in Elie in June of 2007 and destroyed several homes. In August 2006, a twister touched down in Gull Lake and claimed the life of a 64-year-old woman, also destroying several cottages.
-With a report from CTV's Caroline Barghout
