(Photo via Northern Tornadoes Project)South Buxton EF1 tornado July 20, 2023
Windsor

Warnings, wild winds, but no tornado

If you were woken up just after midnight by a message from the City of Windsor warning of a tornado, you're not alone.

The city issued the message through its mass alerts program, Windsor Alerts.

On Facebook, the Ontario Storm Watchers made note of cloud rotation during the storm over Harrow and Wheatley, but the Northern Tornadoes Project said nothing came of it.

Director of the Northern Tornadoes Project, Doctor David Sills, said there were several supercells throughout the region early Thursday morning.

"But rotation in the storm does not necessarily mean a tornado develops. There needs to be a balance of ingredients present for that, and it appears that it didn't come together, fortunately," said Sills. We have received no reports of damage, and at this point, we do not plan to undertake a ground investigation."

Canada recorded its longest tornado season on record last year. A tornado on March 16, 2024, in Malden Centre, tied the record for the earliest ever recorded in Ontario. The other one hit Clifford. The last one of the year was near Fergus on November 10.

There were 129 tornadoes in Canada last year, not enough to beat the national record of 131 in 2022. Fifty were documented in Ontario alone.

The Northern Tornadoes Project was founded in 2017 at Western University.

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