The relatively large tornado touched down in Three Hills, Alberta on Friday afternoon. Environment Canada had issued a tornado warning around 5 p.m. that lasted less than half an hour. The tornado was then gone although heavy rains and hale persisted.
That afternoon, Cecilia Wessels decided to take a nap but not before giving her husband, Theunis, a list of chores to do. One of these was to mow the lawn. Cecilia was woken up by her nine-year-old daughter who was upset. The girl told her mother there was “something like a tornado in the sky” but her dad refused to come in. So Cecilia did what anyone with a cellphone would do; she went and took a picture of her husband calmly mowing the lawn and appearing to be oblivious to the huge twister behind him.
The woman posted the picture on Facebook in order to show her parents in South Africa where tornadoes are exceedingly rare. The picture ended up going viral.
The tornado was not the only storm that day; there was a social media storm after the picture went viral. And of course, there were a lot of jokes on social media. One person tweeted “Nothing stops a Canadian from mowing his lawn.” Another posted “Sometimes yard work is a big priority!” Perhaps the best comment was “When the going gets tough, the tough get mowing.”
As for Theunis, he said he was keeping an eye on the tornado at all times and the funnel was actually moving away from him at the time he was cutting the grass. He also said the twister appeared to be closer to him in the photograph than it actually was.
Videos were also taken of the twister. One showed people driving down a highway not seeming to be bothered by the tornado that was ahead of them and just off the road.
Global News reports this was Alberta’s first tornado of the season. The province generally has about 15 tornadoes every year between April and September. Although there were reports of property damage, no deaths or injuries were reported.
