by Tara de Ryk
July 12, 2010

DAVIDSON—Eyes were trained to the sky south of Davidson July 5 as people stopped whatever they were doing to watch a funnel cloud.

Many people spotted the cloud at about 11 a.m.

Roy Gust was just pulling out of a field that he'd been trying to spray near Girvin when he saw the cloud.

He described it as being a big rain cloud with a long tail.

When he drove into his farmyard about 20 minutes later he still saw the cloud. He said it was east and south of him and looked to be heading in a northeasterly direction. Gust never saw the cloud touch the ground.

Shirley and Austin Eade report having spotted three different funnel clouds on the move in the blackened sky at Craik between 11 a.m. and noon last Monday.

Lorne Riecken spotted the cloud while he was at his farm southwest of Davidson. Riecken said he saw it for about five minutes and the cloud appeared to be in the direction of Craik.

"It looked like at first it was moving towards the ground. Then it became more horizontal."

On the south edge of Davidson, many people saw the cloud.

Gord McRae, who works at C & M Motors, watched the cloud's progress.

There are no reports of the clouds having touched down.

Last week Environment Canada issued an advisory of tornado activity in south central Saskatchewan. On July 2 a tornado touched down in the area of Raymore. The heaviest damage occurred on the Kawacatoose First nation where many homes were destroyed.

High winds, hail, funnel clouds and significant precipitation were reported through the day.

Environment Canada confirmed that the tornado was an F3 tornado with wind speeds estimated at 300 kilometres per hour.

The leaderonline is a division of The Davidson Leader, Davidson, Saskatchewan, Canada.