May21st - after the storm

[MapleRidge]

Hi everyone...

Yesterday was wild weather day across all of Ontario Canada. I'll say up front that we are fine and our property suffered minimal damage.

Around noon the severe weather warnings started to sound with thunderstorms, strong winds, hail, and lightning moving in, and the usual disclaimer that sever thunder storms can produce tornadoes tacked on at the end (text messages/TV banners and radio broadcasts provide the warnings). Most of the time they do not produce what is forecast, but yesterday was the exception.

I was waiting to pick up a co-worker at my brothers farm as a wall of pitch black cloud started to roll in across Lake Simcoe as the leading edge of the cold front was approaching aroud 1pm. Within 2 minutes the winds were howling, carrying debris (twigs, tress limbs, leaves, anything loose) and driving rain. Within 5 minutes it was all over. and the air temperature had dropped form 27c to 14C after the cold front passed.

The latest from Environment Canada is this storm is being categorized as a 'Derecho' . This storm path stretched over a 1,000Km (625 miles) from Essex County in the extreme SW of Ontario all the way through to Quebec City Quebec. The down bursts created winds in some instances over 130Kmh (81 mph) which lead to the damage. So far, 6 deaths are attributed to the storm due to injuries from falling trees/branches.

The fallen trees pulled town transmission lines and cut power to over 300,000 address, and still have just under a quarter million awaiting power restoration. We were lucky...I have a generator to power the hose and did not need to run it long as our power cam back around 8pm. Our power lines are fed form the north, but power comes to our neighbors to the south from a different grid and there is still no power to the south (including my work). The pic below is one of the causes of the prolonged outage to my south, taken looking north. My place is a mile over the hill at the top of the pic:

Eden Rd.jpg (751.73 KiB) Viewed 1238 times

Most roads that run North-South have trees across them...some partially blocked like above or completely blocked like this view to the south of my work. There were 6 trees like this across the road, over the distance of a few hundred feet:

Taylors Rd.jpg (743.6 KiB) Viewed 1238 times

No power and fallen trees are bad enough, but my sister lives in the town of Uxbridge, Ontario...approximately 25 miles to the south-west of my place. There was a strip roughly a mile long to the north of here home that looks like this..pics form twitter:

FTUGU63WAAEV9C9.jpg (497.51 KiB) Viewed 1238 times

FTUGU6cXsAAkeVE.jpg (619.76 KiB) Viewed 1238 times

FTUGU5zWQAIWBb3.jpg (460.69 KiB) Viewed 1238 times

FTUGU_NXwAM09pk.jpg (614.32 KiB) Viewed 1238 times

So far there have been no confirmations of tornadoes, but the damage in Uxbridge looks to be more than down-bursts. Local topography can channel the winds and create different damage pattern. Close to my place is is all open farm land and the winds were not interfered with ... even the 100+ year old maples along the road couldn't stop/redirect them

Today is just over cast and cool...what a difference a day makes.

Brian

[Montana]

You do have the most strange weather, to have a front pass over in 5 minutes is extreme, no wonder the winds were terrible, the isobars must have been so packed together. Here in the UK a front would take typically 1-6hrs to pass over.

This does look like tornado damage but probably horizontal winds rather than circular due to the front. It would be interesting to see a detailed pressure chart of this.

However, I am very glad you are all OK and not suffered too much damage, I also hope the Maple stand is OK?

Alexandra

[MapleRidge]

HI Alexandra...

It was a storm to be remembered. Hydro still out to over 100,000 addresses and in the worst hit areas it could be a week from what is being reported.

We lost a shutter off the house, so nothing of any significance. Quite lucky!! I was back to the sugar bush for a short spell this afternoon and all is good save for two smaller trees that were snapped off near the front of the bush along the road in the full wind.

Just got a text from my sister who is in Uxbridge and she is still without power (save for a small generator to keep the fridge/freezers going). She expects to be another 24 hrs but the worst hit areas to the north of her are in the group feared to be a week without power.

Environment Canada has crews gathering data to determine of a tornado was the cause of this damage...there is a trail across three townships that hit 3 other towns equally hard. This is more tornado like but too early to tell.

Brian

[marktownley]

Wowzers! Crazy destruction.

[JochenM]

Yikes, that looks pretty bad indeed.

Good to hear that you managed to escape the worst of it yourself.

[rsfoto]

Hi Brian,

Good to hear your family and you are OK.

WOW, real disaster. Just read a few newspaper and saw some videos. They talked about wind gusts of up to about 130 km/h ... It is already interesting to hear the wind howl at 50 km/h as we have had a few days ago but 130 km/h ¿?

[rsfoto]

HI Alexandra...

It was a storm to be remembered. Hydro still out to over 100,000 addresses and in the worst hit areas it could be a week from what is being reported.

We lost a shutter off the house, so nothing of any significance. Quite lucky!! I was back to the sugar bush for a short spell this afternoon and all is good save for two smaller trees that were snapped off near the front of the bush along the road in the full wind.

Just got a text from my sister who is in Uxbridge and she is still without power (save for a small generator to keep the fridge/freezers going). She expects to be another 24 hrs but the worst hit areas to the north of her are in the group feared to be a week without power.

Environment Canada has crews gathering data to determine of a tornado was the cause of this damage...there is a trail across three townships that hit 3 other towns equally hard. This is more tornado like but too early to tell.

Brian

Read about this weather phenomen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derecho

[christian viladrich]

Hi Brian,
Looks like a complete disaster ...

[MapleRidge]

Christian...

Yes, it has been a very damaging storm across the entire province but there are areas of extremely severe damage. Environment Canada confirmed today that the damage in Uxbridge was in fact tornado damage.

A news brief is posted below:

At least one tornado was embedded in the massive storm that hit southern Ontario, according to scientists from Western University.

“We have confirmed that the first part through Uxbridge was a tornado,” said David Sills, executive director, Northern Tornadoes Project.

The twister caused kilometres of damage that was examined for days after the deadly weekend storm, which claimed at least 10 lives in Ontario and Quebec.

“They collected enough data to confirm an EF2 tornado was along the leading edge of the derecho. So it was kind of embedded.”

The scientists say it was on the ground as of 1:15 p.m. Saturday and left nearly 4.3 kilometres of damage in its wake. It was also 260 metres wide and had winds of up to 190 km/h.

The intense rain hid the rotation signature on doppler radar and was not in the warnings issued before the storm.

I won't be surprised if more are confirmed.

Brian