A crew of scientists is heading to the Fergus area today, after reports of a possible tornado touchdown in the area overnight.
“Potentially tornadic damage was reported in the Fergus area last night,” said David Sills, executive director with the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) at Western University. “An NTP team is on the way to investigate and we should be able to confirm whether a tornado did indeed occur within the next 24 hours or so.”
On X, Sills shared earlier that the radar showed a “wrapped up bow segment, some fairly tight rotation, and what appears to be a radar-based tornado debris signature with temporal continuity.”
May have just had a weak tornado go through the #Fergus, ON area. Wrapped up bow segment, some fairly tight rotation, and what appears to be a radar-based tornado debris signature with temporal continuity (10:17 and 10:22 CASKR scans, circled). Only lowest tilt though. #ONstorm pic.twitter.com/x13s067MOW
— Dave Sills ???? (@dave_sills) November 11, 2024While that investigation takes place, some residents are sharing photos of the residual damage on social media.
“Six mature spruce trees downed or snapped off,” Scott Moore shared on X. “Bench of front porch flipped over and smashed. Siding damage on the house too.”
Scott Moore noted six mature trees on his property were torn down during a storm just south of Fergus Nov. 10. Scientists are investigating to see if the storm qualifies as a tornado.
By Scott Moore photoAnd Kirk MacDonald also shared photos of some wind damage in the area, with downed trees.
As residents clean up the damage, some are questioning the timing of a tornado alert.
According to Instant Weather Ontario, a tornado alert was issued at 11:01 p.m. on Nov. 10.
“Well this is unusual … we have a tornado warning for this storm tracking through Caledon with Bolton in the path,” the storm watcher said. “Yes, it’s November at 11 p.m. and we’re talking about a tornado warning.”
#ONStorm #ONwx ????️ TORNADO WARNING ISSUED
11:01 PM - Sunday, November 10, 2024
Well this is unusual… we have a tornado warning for this storm tracking through Caledon with Bolton in the path.
Yes, it’s November at 11 PM and we’re talking about a tornado warning. ????
Please… pic.twitter.com/FqUnNx54zw
“A tornado warning was issued for the same storm but east-northeast of Fergus,” Sills said. “I’m not sure if people in Fergus received that warning or not.”
However, the timing of the tornado alert also came after high winds had already begun.
“We recognize the concern about the timeliness and accuracy of tornado warnings. We did a study on that,” Sills added.
Back in 2021, when a tornado ripped through a small area of Barrie on July 15, there were concerns raised the alert was issued after the tornado touched down.
In that storm, the EF-2 level tornado occurred between 2:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. and the emergency alert didn’t light up cellphones unit 2:38 p.m.
The NTP team studied 250 tornadoes in Canada from 2019 to 2021 using open data, and concluded that more than 70 per cent of tornadoes had no tornado warning, including 35 EF2 tornadoes.
“A followup assessment was conducted for the 2022 tornado season in Canada following the same established procedures,” the study said. “It was found that the number of both tornado watches and tornado warnings had roughly doubled, resulting in a significant increase in the probability of detection for tornado warnings.”
However, the agency gave Environment and Climate Change Canada a grade of 56 per cent for sending alerts to residents for a potential tornado, and shared there was room for improvement.
“We will be conducting another tornado warning performance assessment covering the 2023-2024 seasons that will be published in the spring,” Sills added.
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