Major damage to a barn northeast of London earlier this week was caused by wind gusts equivalent to those found in an EF-1 rated tornado, officials with Environment Canada said on Thursday, adding that an investigation is still underway to determine whether an actual tornado touched down in the area.
Thunderstorms rolled through the region Tuesday afternoon, bringing strong winds, hail, heavy rain, and frequent lightning to some areas, an Environment Canada weather summary said.
One storm in particular, which passed just north of London, intensified briefly as it tracked east toward Woodstock, the summary said. The storm produced strong wind gusts that tore the roof off of a barn near Thamesford and downed several trees and power lines in the area.
A team from Western University was dispatched on Wednesday to survey the scene, and on Thursday, Environment Canada reported the team had confirmed that winds gusting up to 150 km/h had caused the damage. EF-1 rated tornadoes produce estimated winds of between 135 and 175 km/h.
Whether a tornado actually touched down in the area is another story, according to Environment Canada’s Peter Kimbell.
“We know that for sure there was a downburst,” said Kimbell, a warning preparedness meteorologist. “Was it possibly a tornado as well? We can’t say at this point.”
With tornadoes, Kimbell says, debris is typically blown around in several directions.
“That really wasn’t the case here,” he said. “This case is quite symptomatic of a downburst. In fact, people who were nearby experienced very strong winds for 10 to 15 minutes, concurrent with strong winds, which is basically the hallmarks of a downburst.”
While officials can’t discount the possibility that a tornado may have preceded the downburst, Kimbell says no evidence has been found yet to definitively confirm.
“We’re looking into it — sometimes clues turn up days later, so we’ll look into it continually as time moves forward,” he said.
If a tornado is confirmed to have touched down, it would be the province’s first recorded tornado of the year, Kimbell said.
While it is slightly early for these types of supercell storms to strike southwestern Ontario, it isn’t unheard of, according to Environment Canada. Last year, an EF-1 tornado was observed on March 16 in Clifford, northwest of Kitchener.
— With files from The Canadian Press