A tornado touches down near Three Hills on June 2, 2017. Photo courtesy Dodi Brauen
Residents of a central Alberta town got a front-row seat to a spectacular spring tornado Friday afternoon. 

The twister touched down a little after 5 p.m. in a field a few kilometres northeast of the town of Three Hills, kicking up a large amount of dirt and dust as it bore its way east.

Incredible time-lapse footage of the twister was uploaded to YouTube by user Vance Neudorf.
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Resident Dodi Brauen was watching the storm clouds from her front porch when the tornado started to take shape. 

"It started to rain, a little bit, and then I said 'oh, that looks like a funnel cloud.'" she said. 

"It looked like it was drawing the dust up."

Watching from her home on the east outskirts of town, she said the tornado seemed to bypass her house before continuing on east.

Severe weather watches were issued by Environment Canada.

Witnesses said the tornado was on the ground for about ten minutes.

While intense weather isn't unheard of in the area, photographer and storm enthusiast Jason Ewert told Postmedia it was the first time he'd seen a tornado so close to town.

"I have on occasion taking photos of this kind of weather, but I've been here since 1992 and I've never, in town, been able to see a funnel cloud like that," he said.

Early reports suggest no injuries or damage from the tornado, which grew from a long line of afternoon storms that swept across the centre of the province.

bpassifiume@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @bryanpassifiume