Officials with Environment Canada were in New Brunswick on Monday to investigate reports of a tornado, after a fierce storm hit the Grand Lake-area on Saturday.
Although tornadoes are not a common occurrence in the Atlantic Canada, there have been a handful recorded in the past century.
New Brunswick is the most often hit, as it sits at the edge of Canada’s tornado zone – a region that stretches from the B.C.-Alberta border all the way through New Brunswick, encompassing the southern half of the country in the provinces it covers – and tornado activity has been observed in the province at least eight times in the past 10 years.
Read more: Tornadoes – The myths and the facts
Experts say it’s hard to gauge the true number of tornadoes across the country, in a year, because many occur in areas that are unpopulated and go unobserved.
But, Canada and the United States see more tornadoes than anywhere else in the world.
Tornado season in Canada generally occurs in the summer, when clashing air masses move north.
Global News takes a look at some of the notable tornadic activity in Atlantic Canadian history
In 1879, a major tornado touched down in Bouctouche, N.B., killing five people. It is estimated that it was an F3 – a rating based on the Fujita scale, which was not invented until 1971 – which would have brought winds at least 250 kilometres per hour in strength. Since then, there have been no fatalities from tornadoes in Atlantic Canada.
On Aug. 14, 1989, three tornadoes touched down in New Brunswick, with one destroying a barn and uprooting some trees in Carlisle.
On July 26, 1995, a tornado in Fredericton took the roof off a government building and damaged an indoor tennis court.
On July 4, 1997, farmers’ fields were ripped up by a tornado in Grand Falls.
In Nova Scotia, there have been at least three tornadoes on record: Jan. 30, 1954 near White Point Beach, June 24, 1997 in Lantz and Aug. 18, 1999 in Pugwash.
Newfoundland and Labrador has had at least seven recorded tornadoes since 1992.
There have been reports of tornadic activity in P.E.I., but the island’s small size puts it at a lower risk for such weather events.
The strength of a tornado is now measured on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which is a grade – from EF0 to EF5 – assigned based on the damage it causes. The strongest, an EF5, has estimated wind speeds in excess of 320 kilometres per hour.
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