Northern Tornadoes Project investigates possible tornadoes in Blenheim, Kingsville, Leamington and Harrow

As people across the region clean up from the mess left behind by Wednesday’s storm, a team of researchers have rolled into town to investigate the possibility of another tornado touchdown.

Amidst the constant buzzing of chainsaws in Blenheim Thursday, you could hear a different, quieter buzzing noise coming from a drone.

“We investigate all severe wind events across Canada, and especially tornadoes,” said Aaron Jaffe, an engineering researcher with the Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University.

The team of surveyors are dispatched to various locales across the country after serious storms to look at damage on the ground, study pictures taken before the clean up, and fly an aerial drone high above the ground to look for patterns.

“For a tornado, you might see a long, thin path of damage with maybe some convergence where the trees are down and the debris has flown,” said Jaffe. “With a downburst, you might see more widespread damage that is divergent or fan-shaped in trajectory.”

Damage in Blenheim was relatively minor, according to Jaffe, with many felled and uprooted trees, a crushed garage and shingles tossed from roofs.

Blenheim’s Evergreen Cemetery was closed for clean-up and now has a couple fewer evergreens than the day before.

“We are seeing some signs. We’ve seen a long thin path as well as radar evidence that it might be a tornado,” said Jaffe.

After investigating the scene in Blenheim, the team of researchers also made stops in Leamington, Kingsville and Harrow to continue its investigation.

They will return to the lab at Western University Thursday night and hope to have answers by the evening, or Friday morning.

The Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) team has had a pretty typical summer thus far, with maybe even fewer investigations than a year prior. But Jaffe notes there’s a lot of tornado season left.

“Typically, July and August, those are our biggest months, so we’re in the heat of it right now,” he said.

The team of about 20 people takes turns travelling to the various storm zones. This year, they’ve been to Ottawa, Quebec, Manitoba and in southwestern Ontario a few times already this year.

Jaffe hopes their research can ultimately do more than confirm tornado touch-downs.

“One of the big things we hope to improve with this project is to be able to better predict tornados so we can help Environment Canada and others work on those tornado warnings so that people can be warned properly,” he said.