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It's been a busy time for me from late 2007 until the present. Workload kept me from sending out a summary of the 2007 Summer Severe Weather Season and a thank you for all of the help CANWARN storm spotters provided last season. Hard to look out the window and see all of the snow on the ground and think that we could be less than a month away from severe thunderstorms rumbling through Southern Ontario. Spring may take awhile to fully arrive this year but arrive it will and with it will come powerful thunderstorms that will again generate damaging winds, large hail, torrential rains and tornadoes.
However, before we look ahead to this Spring's training schedule, I think it is important to reflect on last season which was CANWARN's 20th anniversary here in Ontario. The attached image shows the 4 founding fathers of the CANWARN program (from left to right...Bill Leal, Randy Mawson, Paul Robertson and Jerry Beneteau) who got together and formed the first CANWARN group in the Windsor area in 1987. The image shows the 4 holding the Environment Canada Certificates of Appreciation that I was happy to present to them during the CANWARN training last spring in Leamington.
The 2007 season itself was an interesting one with 9 confirmed or probable tornadoes just two fewer than the long term average of 11 in Ontario. Of note was that 5 of these tornadoes were associated with a massive supercell thunderstorm that moved through portions of Grey, Bruce, Huron, Perth and Waterloo-Wellington counties on July 8th, 2007. In addition to spawning a number of tornadoes, large hail was reported with this event as well. Fortunately, no major structural damage was done from this impressive storm. Also interesting was that all of the tornadoes last year were ranked at the lowest end of the Fujita damage scale…as either an F0 (winds up to 115 km/h) or F1 (winds between 120 and 170 km/h). We continue to be long overdue for an F3 or larger tornado with the last F3 being confirmed in the Violet Hill area in April of 1996.
2007 also reminded us than anywhere in the Province can experience severe thunderstorms and tornadoes with a damaging wind event occurring in Northwestern Ontario in the Ignace area on the morning of June 26th, a confirmed F1 tornado occurring later that same day about 60 km to the west of Thunder Bay and a damaging wind event taking place on August 1st at the Kashechewan First Nation near James Bay.
Regards,
Geoff Coulson
Warning Preparedness Meteorologist
Environment Canada
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