It felt like a tornado!

Holy cow, we just got the most severe thunderstorm rolling through. DH and were downstairs when it hit - a wall of water being blown in with such force, it came in under the closed door and all the windows on one side of the building. The wind was howling and the sky suddenly dark. I was so scared that I locked the cats in the storage room (safest place in the building)!
After it cleared and we mopped up the mess, we went outside to survey the damage. One tree uprooted across the sidewalk, our neighbour's tree lost a couple of branches and took out the side fence, her back fence has been obliterated by 4 60-year old pines that came down, and the other neighbour's house narrowly escaped being hit by another tree! There are still sirens going off everywhere, and everyone is out and about taking photos.
Phew! Most excitement we've had here for a while!

My goodness! Glad everyone is ok!

There were reports of tornado touchdowns further west, so it could have been much worse. I'm watching the Weather Network right now.

Whoa!! That is crazy...we only got a flash flood type of rainfall here...No bad wind.

Glad your okay!

Wow! Where in Canada are you?

A few years ago I was in my living room talking on the phone to a friend in the USA. We were having a bad thunder storm and I'm terrified of thunder so he was "babysitting" me, LOL The sky looked really wicked and there was lightning like I hadn't seen for a very long time. Fork, streak, cloud to cloud... Suddenly the wind started to pick up and my windows were rattling, and the noise was deafening: like a freight train.

He could hear my windows rattling and the loud noise, and asked me what that sound was and I told him that it was still storming out and it was the wind. He started to yell at me that it wasn't just the wind and to grab some cushions and go hide in the tub and to DO IT NOW!!! He had me so freaked out that I did as he said.

Nothing happened.

However, Winnipeg is in the upper area of "Tornado Alley" and we do sometimes get them, but not usually in the heart of downtown. I didn't see any damage outside, and I don't usually watch the news or read the paper regularly, and I forgot to check so I don't know if it was a tornado or not. If it was it wasn't a very big one. I do live on the bank of a river, so it is possible that if one touched down it might have only been briefly and on the river itself. But I don't know. All I know is that I've never heard anything like that in my life during a storm. I hope to never hear something like that again.

It was probably straight line winds off of the storm, people don't realize how strong those alone can be.

A couple of summers ago we had a bad storm with 90+ mph winds, it snapped several power lines. One woman had the brilliant idea of driving in such weather instead of staying in her home (and no, there wasn't tornado warnings with that storm), she ended up driving under a long line of snapping poles and power lines, ultimately getting trapped by the live lines.

Wow, how scary. I am glad that you all are ok.. Stay safe everyone in your area..

Might add, standard practice in rough storms here is to stay away from you windows and preferably head to an inner room without them, or at least less windows. If anyone ever feels a storm is getting that violent, no matter where you live, take the suggestion.

We experienced a "mini tornado" in New Zealand once, and ever since then, we've both been easily scared by strong winds. I just don't want to take chances. It's good to get a reminder every now and then of how powerful Mother Nature still is. Puts things in perspective.

That's scary! I'm glad you're okay!

Wow, that was powerful! I'm glad everyone is ok and the damage is minor.

About 10 years ago, we had a tornado come through when I was at work. I was always told since we lived in the moutains it "couldn't happen". Well, we had a f-4 tornado come through on the other side of the road. It was the scariest thing! We were huddled in the men's bathroom (I had just cleaned and mopped it thank god!) because that was the only room with no outside walls. My ears started popping, I could feel the walls moving and suddenly I heard what I thought was a jet! I thought "why would a jet be flying in the middle of a tornado?" duh! Yeah, it was the tornado I was hearing. Very freaky experience! I just kept looking at the ceiling waiting for it to come off. (I was also manager for the night...so I couldn't freak out! One of my employees was so terrified she wrote a note and pinned it to her uniform so, and I quote, "when they find my dead body they will know who I am!)

Yeah, I was freaked out about any storm or strong wind after that for a while. I love storms, and love watching stories about tornadoes, but once I saw that funnel cloud up close and personal, I was like..."Ok, too close, not interested anymore!"

gald that your ok ,
the winds where blowing very high when i left for work last light.
the farmers had just did there think, so alot of lose soil. it looked like a dust storm coming into work

I'm glad you are OK!! Gosh...I probably would've peed my pants! I'm such a wuss.

Scary, glad everyone is ok! We had a similar night last night. I checked the weather forecast and they said there was a storm about an hour from here... we had to run outside and bring stuff in before the rain but I figured we'd have a little while. We went out and it was really windy and there was lots of lightning and thunder. We got the stuff, went in, shut the door.... and heard the rain hit it. It POURED for an hour, lights almost went out, and we heard the sirens going off at one point. Luckily we live in the basement! Went out this morning and stuff was scattered around the yard... I heard that the winds were 60-70 MPH during the storm.

Wow!! How very scary!! So glad that your ok!!

We had a tornado warning a few counties west of us last night. Since the storms usually come west to east I was concerned. I hate storms. The wind did pick up and there was lightening, but thankfully no real damage. My cats were sort of freaked out by the light show. I'm always scared that if we really had a bad storm I could never get them to go in the closet with me. I know they would hide under something. Juno always hides anyway from anything. I would hate something to happen to them. Glad you're ok.

Wow...Glad you are okay!!!

Yikes that's nuts! We're under a sever thunderstorm watch till 8 here. I hope DH will get home soon. Don't want him our driving in it. Looks icky!

We only get slight rain and gale here, there was a small tornado in London though. Nothing compared to America's bad weather!

Yikes that looks bad! Im so glad you are ok!