Environment Canada rarely issues extreme thunderstorm risks. We will see High risk issued fairly frequently, but when you wake up on the morning of a storm chase to see red on the map, you know you’re potentially in for a big day. This was what awaited me on the morning of June 9th, 2026. The models had been looking fairly intense in the days leading up to that morning, so I had an inkling it could be a big day, but I wasn’t mentally prepared to see that red on the map.
My chase partner, Herry, and I had just chased the last extreme risk two days earlier on June 7th in Manitoba, along with dozens of other US-based chasers who had driven many hours for that setup, only for it to bust fairly hard. The problem with storms in early June on the Canadian prairies is a lack of deep moisture. We aren’t making any ourselves at that time (crops are still in the ground, most of the landscape is just waking up), so storms tend to struggle a bit compared to expectations. So to wake up to another extreme risk in a matter of days felt strange. As I looked at the models that morning, it wasn’t clear to me that Environment Canada had gotten things quite right; the heart of the area they were concerned about was closer to Brandon, but I had a difficult time seeing moisture travelling that far north. As the morning wore on, surface observations made that abundantly clear. Dew points were clearly struggling the further north you went.
There was a pocket of really good vorticity and shear right around the Estevan/Oxbow area, and surface observations were MUCH better in the Estevan area. Herry and I decided to drive down to Estevan and wait along the border for something to develop.
We made the right call and were only two of the handful of chasers on the storm of the year for the Canadian Prairies. The storm popped in northern North Dakota and began tracking northeast. As it crossed the border at North Portal, it became very photogenic and Herry and I were getting quite excited. After a quick stop to grab some photos, we travelled east along a gravel road to get ahead. Herry was the passenger and yelled that it was tightening up, and we needed to stop right away. We found an opening in the trees, pulled over and grabbed a beautiful timelapse sequence of the Oxbow EF-3 tornadogenesis. One of the books.
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