Tornado Confirmed

[conestogo_flood]

>> http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national ... 51110.html

The tornado tracked right over a school in Hamilton, but luckily classes had just ended and most students were gone. It occured at 4pm yesterday, no tornado warning/severe thunderstorm warning/severe thunderstorm watch/tornado watch was in effect. I called into The Weather Network to report, as the storm moved over me, that is was very intense and was more severe in my opinion. The noted at around 4pm that there was some rotation detected over Hamilton as the storm moved through, but Environment Canada as always, didn't react. They are just lucky that no one died, two people were injured. The tornado tracked over three cities, Hamilton, Hamilton Mountain and Stoney Creek. It was on continuous news coverage last night, people reported it to be almost 1/2 km wide. There was some amazing damage video from a neighbourhood of houses with the roofs ripped off and trees down on houses.

AWCN11 CWTO 101818
SPECIAL WEATHER SUMMARY FOR ALL OF SOUTHERN ONTARIO AND
THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION
ISSUED BY ENVIRONMENT CANADA TORONTO
AT 1:15 PM EST THURSDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2005.

-------------------------------------------------------------
==WEATHER EVENT DISCUSSION==

AN INTENSE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM SWEPT ACROSS NORTHERN ONTARIO
YESTERDAY TRAILING AN EQUALLY INTENSE COLD FRONT THAT SWEPT ACROSS
SOUTHERN ONTARIO. A LINE OF THUNDERSTORMS DEVELOPED JUST AHEAD OF
THE COLD FRONT DURING THE AFTERNOON HOURS. ONE OF THE STORMS ALONG
THIS LINE SPAWNED A BRIEF TORNADO OVER HAMILTON. AHEAD OF THE WARM
FRONT THE OTTAWA VALLEY EXPERIENCED SEVERAL HOURS OF FREEZING RAIN.

ENVIRONMENT CANADA CONTINUES TO CONDUCT A COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY
OF THE DAMAGE THAT WAS REPORTED IN HAMILTON YESTERDAY AFTERNOON.
ENVIRONMENT CANADA IS NOW CONFIRMING THAT AN F1 TORNADO WITH WINDS
OF 120 KM/H TO 170 KM/H DID OCCUR IN HAMILTON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
AROUND 4:00 PM. THE DAMAGE PATH EXTENDS ABOUT 8 TO 10 KM LONG AND
ABOUT 150 METRES WIDE OVER AN AREA INCLUDING LAWFIELD ELEMENTARY
SCHOOL.

THE OCCURRENCE OF A TORNADO THIS LATE IN THE YEAR IS VERY RARE
IN ONTARIO WITH ONLY 2 OTHER SUCH RECORDINGS IN THE LAST 88 YEARS.
THE OTHER TWO TORNADOES, BOTH F2 IN STRENGTH WITH WINDS OF 180 KM/H
TO 250 KM/H, OCCURRED NORTH OF EXETER ON DECEMBER 12, 1946 AND
SOUTHWEST OF LEAMINGTON ON NOVEMBER 29, 1919.

4:00 PM HAMILTON CONFIRMED F1 TORNADO
THE PRELIMINARY DAMAGE SURVEY SHOWS
A DAMAGE PATH 8-10 KM LONG
AND 150 METRES WIDE
EYE WITNESS REPORTS OF THE TORNADO
LARGE DUMPSTERS THROWN 25 METRES
SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO SOUTHEAST
CORNER OF LAWFIELD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
3 TO 4 HOMES WITH PARTS OF THEIR
ROOFS REMOVED
TREES UPROOTED OR SNAPPED

[P.K.]

How many tornadoes do you tend to get in a year over there? I only really know about tornadoes over here, but I have read other information about tornadoes in the USA.

[conestogo_flood]

Ontario: 15 - 20 reported yearly.
Canada: 100 - 200 reported yearly.

2005 Ontario tornadoes:

May 13 Rodney F0
Jun 05 Windsor F0
Jun 08 Stratford F0
Jun 13 Rockwood F0
Jun 14 Orrville F0
Jun 14 Erin F0
Jun 14 Brant Township F2
Aug 9 Saintfield F1
Aug 19 Milverton to Conestogo Lake(25km path, 1 mile wide) F2
Aug 19 Salem to Bellwood(10 km path, 1 mile wide) F2
Sep 25 Feversham F1
Nov 9 Hamilton F1

Ontario's worst tornado was on May 31, 1985. It was when Canada's worst tornado outbreak occured, 15 tornadoes occured in southern Ontario with F2/F3/F4 tornadoes. The tornado was an F4 and it killed 8 people in the city of Barrie pop.130,000.

[P.K.]

Do you know if those are F0s due to passing over land where they can do no damage or due to actually causing F0 damage? The number of T0s over here compared to say T1 and T2s is rather low.

Taking your upper figure of 200 per year we stll get 7 times more per year per land area over here.

[conestogo_flood]

Canada receives the 2nd most number of reported tornadoes than any other country on earth. Do to our sparse population, only 32 million, many many tornadoes go un-noticed. The F0s, they do touchdown on land, and they do cause damage. That is how they are figured to be tornadoes. If they are on water, that is a waterspout.

[isobar]

Canada can get some monster tornadoes. The 1987 Edmonton, Alberta one is probably the most famous. Wasn't that an F4?

[P.K.]

Canada receives the 2nd most number of reported tornadoes than any other country on earth. Do to our sparse population, only 32 million, many many tornadoes go un-noticed. The F0s, they do touchdown on land, and they do cause damage. That is how they are figured to be tornadoes. If they are on water, that is a waterspout.

Ah yes but according to Wikipedia Canada is 41 times bigger than the UK so we don't do too badly over here taking the 1960-1989 average of 33 a year.

It could be down to chance but that is a high proportion of F0s. I'm sure I read somewhere if it is known to have touched down but no damage is found a F0 classification is assigned even though F0 damage isn't found, whereas we wouldn't give it a number in that case.

[conestogo_flood]

Canada can get some monster tornadoes. The 1987 Edmonton, Alberta one is probably the most famous. Wasn't that an F4?

Around here, it is the Barrie F4 of 1985, Woodstock F3 and F4 of 1979 and the Sarnia F4 of 1953. Outside of southern Ontario, and probably to most Americans, the Edmonton F4 tornado is the most famous.

Barrie F4:
http://www.ontariostorms.com/1985/barrie/barrie.html

Edmonton F4:
http://www.ontariostorms.com/1987/jul31/
http://www.ee.ualberta.ca/~rob/tornado87.htm

Sarnia F4:
http://www.thecurrent.ca/observerstorie ... m=&ucat=3&

We have had a real shortage of big tornadoes in Canada, the last F4 was 1987 in Edmonton. Environment Canada is continuosly warning us that the next one will be any day now. Our local news station even made a commercial about it this summer.