A rare, short-lived night-time tornado cut a swath through Southwestern Ontario, uprooting trees, gobbling up rooftops and exposing a lag in the technology that has long been relied upon to warn residents about threats from above.
Environment Canada forecasters were well within the standard window of time for tornado warnings, disseminating an alert 23 minutes before the small town of Leamington was nailed by high winds, debris and downed branches. The only problem? The warning came at 2:37 a.m. when the thousands of people who live in those predominantly rural, agricultural communities were asleep – and thus, unprepared.
Although no major injuries have been reported, the tornado came as a shock to all but the small fraction of residents who own special weather radios. The radios, which can be purchased at most electronics stores, can be set to a frequency that beeps or chimes whenever the government has issued such a warning.
“Not very many [people own radios,] unfortunately,” said Gordon McBean, a professor at the University of Western Ontario and a director for policy at the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction. “Weather radios have been around for quite a while … they're very limited.”
As cellphones, Blackberries and iPhones have proliferated, weather-warning systems have not kept pace. The Weather Network, the privately owned specialty channel, offers a mobile application that issues severe weather alerts to cellphones, but Environment Canada says for now, the radios remain their predominant vehicle for disseminating alerts at night.
“We'd like to get to that point but we're not there, yet” said Peter Kimbell, a warning- preparedness meteorologist for Environment Canada. “I think the technology probably exists, but would require a lot of co-ordination with many different parties … it's a complicated issue.”
Because the town on the north shore of Lake Erie was struck long after sundown, and with no video cameras to capture the twister, it took Environment Canada investigators almost all of Sunday to confirm that the carnage was caused, at least in part, by a brief tornado. After identifying swirling patterns in the debris, researchers concluded that the initial damage was caused by a tornado that travelled for about 400 metres, and was followed by a large downburst of wind and rain.
Leamington deputy mayor Rob Schmidt issued a state of emergency about three hours after the storm. Some residents reported seeing green lightning. Marilyn Collard told The Canadian Press that she woke up confused, wondering where the freight train was coming from.
“I would never want to live through this again. Ever, Ever. It's the sound. When you start hearing trees snapping ... that is just scary,” Ms. Collard said.
Tornadoes after nightfall are considered much more dangerous than those during the day. A study by professors at Northern Illinois University found that, between 1950 and 2005, only 27 per cent of tornadoes in the United States took place at night. However, nearly 39 per cent of the deaths that were caused by tornadoes, occurred at night.
As of Sunday, power outages in the Leamington area were widespread and crews worked feverishly to restore electricity.
With a report from The Canadian Press
