Alberta Witnesses Canada’s First Tornado of 2025 Near Rolling Hills
So, here's a wild one for mid-April — Canada just got its first confirmed tornado of the year, and guess what? It happened in Alberta, right near Rolling Hills. Yep, while some parts of the province were still seeing snowflakes, a twister decided to make an appearance out on the prairies. This all went down on Saturday, April 12, around 5:20 p.m. MDT, about 10 kilometers north of Rolling Hills. And no, this wasn’t your usual powerhouse supercell tornado — it was what they call a landspout tornado.
Now, landspouts are a bit of a different breed. They form from weak rotation near the ground and typically spin up beneath fast-growing clouds or smaller thunderstorms. You won’t get those dramatic, swirling monsters like you see in the movies, but don’t let their size fool you — landspouts can still be dangerous. Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) jumped in to confirm this one, giving it a preliminary rating of EF-0, which is on the lower end of the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Fortunately, there haven’t been any reports of damage so far, but this twister was definitely caught on camera by a few folks out there — photo and video proof has been floating around online.
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What’s interesting is that the weather setup that day wasn’t even screaming “tornado day.” There wasn’t much energy in the air — just a few hundred joules of CAPE (which is pretty normal for this time of year), and the dew points were below freezing. But the magic ingredient? That classic Alberta mix of cool air aloft and surface heating. It creates this steep temperature drop with height, and even with limited storm juice, the right boundary or convergence zone can spin up a visible funnel. That’s exactly what happened here.
To break it down, landspout tornadoes aren’t formed from the big, rotating supercell storms. Instead, they pop up where winds are converging near the surface. Think of a small, swirling dust devil on steroids, and then imagine a strong updraft stretching it vertically. Just like how a figure skater spins faster pulling in their arms, this column of air can tighten and strengthen. That’s what we saw play out north of Rolling Hills.
Alberta actually has a bit of a history with being “first” when it comes to tornadoes. It also saw the first one of 2023 — another EF-0 landspout near Cayley on May 11. But 2024 kicked things off even earlier, with Ontario grabbing the spotlight with a record-setting tornado on March 16 near Windsor.
So, with Canada just stepping into tornado season, this little EF-0 is likely just the beginning. Alberta averages over 11 tornadoes a year, so expect more action as we move further into spring. Still, it’s always a bit surreal to see tornadoes swirling while snow’s still falling not far away. Gotta love that Alberta weather.
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