On Tuesday Swift Current was hit with wind gusts of 124 kilometres per hour, causing a power outage in the city and damage for many Swift Current residents.

Terri Lang is a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, and said that the wind gusts Swift Current experienced were unique because they didn't come from a thunderstorm. 

"What was unique about this situation is normally we see these types of winds coming out of thunderstorms because those are the types of systems the can really generate those strong wind gusts," she said. "But this came out of a really strong and intense low-pressure disturbance, and we saw wind gusts over 120 in some communities from Alberta through Saskatchewan, so it was really quite a neat situation."

Lang said that the storm developed on the coast of British Columbia and quickly made its way through the prairies.

"This low-pressure system developed really rapidly, it developed on the B.C. coast Tuesday morning, and by Wednesday afternoon it was already in northern Manitoba," Lang said. "That speaks to how fast the system was moving. We don't tend to get these higher wind gusts in the valleys through British Columbia because it's hard for the system to get organized. But once it gets over the mountains and starts to develop there is lots of open space for these winds to blow. We often get funnelling effects from valleys that happen in and around Alberta and Saskatchewan."

In Swift Current, some of the damage ranged from a flipped over trampoline to a trailer on top of a range rover.

Lang added that the damage Swift Current experienced was not uncommon for winds over 120 kilometres an hour.

"We had blowing things, blowing trees, blowing dust; we had the smoke from the grass fires," she said. "The other thing we saw happen was that semi-trailers were getting blown over, we had a number of those happening. There was debris all over the highway so if you were just driving along minding your own business you might drive into something."

Lang said that the safest thing to do is to stay indoors and tie as much as possible down can so it doesn't blow away.

"We certainly tell people that when the wind is forecasted like that, to make sure that you put stuff away, trim off your dead branches, put away the garbage cans, and maybe secure the trampoline, that type of thing," Lang said. "When the wind is gusting that high you don't leave the house you have to kind of stay put."

She added that people should make sure everything is charged ahead of time in case there happens to be a power outage.

The last time Swift Current had winds over 120 kilometres an hour was in April of 1987 when the wind reached 126 kilometres an hour.