Residents of B.C. city joke around after alarming tornado warning | Daily Hive

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On the evening of Canada Day, residents of the small B.C. city of Prince George were put on alert after being notified of a tornado warning.

Fortunately, the tornado failed to materialize, but the weather event has sparked a lively conversation among residents of Prince George, a city with a population of around 80,000 people.

Daily Hive spoke with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) about the tornado, or lack thereof, and also obtained some fascinating facts about tornadoes in the province in general.

“We issued what we call a radar-based warning, and that was at 8:18 p.m. yesterday,” an ECCC meteorologist told Daily Hive, adding that the warning was for folks who resided in areas just east of Prince George.

Some residents shared pictures of the weather alerts they received, which might have been alarming to see pop up on their phones.

“Take immediate cover in a basement or interior room if weather threat approaches. Shelter from flying debris if outside,” the warning stated.

Conditions were still a little messy for residents. Shortly after it was issued, the tornado warning was downgraded to a severe thunderstorm warning. While some residents may have experienced stormy weather, and some have shared photos of large hail that fell in certain areas, no tornado materialized.

“We don’t have any confirmed reports at this time of a touchdown,” ECCC said.

“It was a dodgy few minutes, but thankfully we all survived the great tornado of 2025 up here,” one resident said on Reddit.

Another resident asked, “I can’t possibly be the only person a little disappointed we didn’t get one, right?”

Someone else joked, “It was horrific. Five to 10 dollars in damage.”

One resident shared a photo of something that resembled a land spout.

“We will rebuild,” said another jokester in response to that photo.

ECCC told Daily Hive that, while rare, tornadoes probably occur in the province more than we realize.

“There are large areas of mountainous terrain where there aren’t people to witness tornadoes. And there’s a lack of radar coverage in some parts of British Columbia, so we don’t really see the radar signatures as well.”

“I can certainly say that there’s probably more going on out there than we know.”

We asked ECCC if Vancouver would see any of the conditions we’re seeing further north in the province. We were informed that we wouldn’t, but it sounds like we’ll get a bit of a break from the heat we’ve seen in recent days.

“We do have cooler conditions in store for the next few days, but we’re not expecting the volatile situation that we were seeing up north.”

Vancouver is also no stranger to tornadoes in recent years. In 2021, an area near UBC was ravaged by something that resembled a tornado. More recently, something resembling a funnel cloud was spotted in Metro Vancouver in May of this year.

Did you experience the great Prince George tornado of 2025? Let us know in the comments.

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