Local expert weighs in on London’s weekend tornado scare

Article content

That was close.

An Environment Canada warning that had Londoners bracing for a possible tornado on Saturday proved to be not quite accurate: While a twister touched down an hour’s drive east, in Ayr, toppling trees and severely damaging buildings, London went unscathed, one local expert says.

“That was really the big event over the whole weekend,” David Sills, executive director of Western University’s Northern Tornadoes Project, said of the Ayr tornado.

Article content

In London – where the national weather agency warned of a severe storm that could include tornadoes – the threat didn’t materialize, unlike earlier this summer.

On July 10, according to Sills and his colleagues at the research lab dedicated to twisters, two tornadoes hit London late in the afternoon: One in the area of Hyde Park and River Bend in the city’s northwest end, and another in an unspecified part of west London, with one image suggesting it touched down near Cherryhill Village.

The west London tornado had wind speeds estimated at 90 km/h and the Hyde Park one left a damage pathway 10 metres wide, officials said. They were both rated EF0 – the lowest possible rating for a tornado’s strength.

Sills led a survey team to check out the damage in Ayr after Saturday’s EF-1 tornado, which he says was “on the weaker side” of twisters but still generated winds strong enough to flip over empty rail cars.

“That’s something we haven’t seen too much of,” he said.

Article content

Saturday’s tornado covered a total distance of five kilometres, causing significant damage along its path. Sills describes downed trees blocking major roads and large sections of roof missing from a Home Hardware location in the area.

Founded at Western University in 2017, the Northern Tornadoes Project’s mandate is “to better detect tornado occurrence throughout Canada and improve severe and extreme weather understanding and prediction.”

It seems Londoners won’t need to worry again about tornadoes any time soon. Asked about any twister activity in the forecast, Sills said: “We’re going to be in a cooler, high pressure pattern and not expecting to see much.”

nbrennan@postmedia.com

Article content