Possible tornado investigations underway after Windsor-Essex storm

A powerful storm ripped through Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent on Sunday, leading to damage cleanup and possible tornado investigations.

Environment Canada warning preparedness meteorologist Peter Kimball said the radar showed a very linear shape of a thunderstorm line, consistent with a downburst. The peak of the storm happened around 6:45 Sunday night. He said wind gusts locally could be as high as 90 or 100 km/h, but was measured at Windsor Airport at 80 km/h.

One of the places caught in the storm’s path of destruction was the Windsor neighborhood of Forest Glade.

“I looked down the road and there were trees across the street and shingles flying,” said Dawn Horvat, a Forest Glade resident. “It was quite wild for a few minutes there.”

Her backyard was tossed about, her kids’ trampoline flipped, the swing set bent in half and torn from the ground and toppled the back fence.

She said it all happened in a matter of seconds.

“It was almost gone before it started. Like as it was it was over and done by the time we got out there,” she said, noting it felt like the house was shaking from the intensity of the wind. Other neighbours say they heard a strange sound, almost like a pulsing wind.

A Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) survey team has been deployed to Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent counties to investigate damage in four locations, including a reported tornado in west Windsor.

The other areas under investigation are in Essex, Chatham and Tecumseh.

Beach Grove Golf and Country Club in Tecumseh had about 10 to 15 trees down. The course is expected to be closed for a few days while they clean up but there was no reported damage to buildings.A tree landed on a fence at the edge of Beach Grove Golf Course in Tecumseh, Ont., on Monday, June 26, 2023. (Rich Garton/CTV News Windsor)

Environment Canada had issued a severe thunderstorm warning before the storm hit on Sunday afternoon, bringing rain and strong wind gusts.

“Things are ramping up. It is starting to become peak tornado season,” said Connell Miller of the Western University Northern Tornadoes Project, which sent a team to the region Monday to survey the damage.

They use drones to map out the path of destruction to help determine whether the storm was a tornado or downburst.

NTP detects, assesses, documents, and makes the data public for tornadoes and other damaging thunderstorm wind events across Canada. NTP preliminary assessments are sent to the federal government’s Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) forecast offices before being made public.

“Not to say that these are tornadoes yet because we haven't confirmed anything, but so far we haven't seen widespread damage yet,” he said. “It seems to be along a path but we'll have to wait and see until we can do our full analysis back in the lab.”

Miller said the damage is on the low end of the scale.

After the team wraps up at Beach Grove, it will check out damage Windsor’s Forest Glade and west-end, Essex and Chatham-Kent for reports of damage.

The typical tornado season is shifting to later in July until early to mid-August, according to Miller.

“We'll see more and more events like this across Ontario most likely,” said Miller.

Horvat is happy there aren’t any reports of injuries, just a lot of tidying up to do.

“It was really nice to kind of see the neighborhood come out and come together for a moment and help each other out and even just consoling each other,” Horvat said.