Clinton Monchuk even provided some commentary as he sprayed
By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com
Farmers aren’t strangers to working in adverse weather but one Saskatchewan producer took the practice a step further.
Clinton Monchuk, a farmer from near Lanigan, Sask., was applying a fungicide to his barley crop on Friday afternoon when he noticed the weather begin to change.
“There was a very, very dark, almost black cloud that was kind of hovering to the west of me where I was spraying,” he told The Weather Network.
The twister touched down for between 15 and 30 seconds, Monchuk told The Weather Network. He estimated he was about 3km away from the tornado at the time.
Monchuk put his equipment on auto-steer, took out his phone and recorded a video documenting his experience.
“…it’s getting windier,” he said in the video. “It looks like, right now, the tornado is dissipating. It was a little wider up top before but you can see how the clouds are twisting and turning above.”
Monchuk could’ve easily parked his equipment right then and there, but a little bit of wind wasn’t going to slow him down.
“It wasn’t raining,” he told Global News Saskatoon, adding that he called his family to ensure his children were in a safe spot.
A total of six tornados touched down in Saskatchewan – two north of Lanigan, one north of Jansen, one near Quill Lake, one near Fishing Lake and one between Wapella and Rocanville – on Friday, according to Environment Canada.