Data is being gathered on Tuesday in the New Brunswick after two reported tornadoes.
Photos and videos of the November 1st events in the Harvey and Sheffield areas were posted to social media.
Dr. David Sills is the Executive Director of the Northern Tornadoes Project based at Western University in London, Ontario.
“The Northern Tornadoes Project got its start in 2017 and we’ve grown since then to be able to cover every tornado that occurs across Canada. So that means we’re going out doing the investigations, doing the assessments and ratings for tornadoes, and then making all of that data public through our website.”
The team is in the Fredericton area today as they look into this month’s tornadoes.
“What we know so far is that the first was in the Harvey area, and someone got pretty nice photos of the tornado as it went by and came off the lake there. So we’ll be investigating that. And there was another video that was online on Facebook, and it showed a clear tornado in the Sheffield area that on radar, was a longer area of rotation. So we’re expecting there may be a longer track. There may be two tracks,” Sills says.
He told us reports they’ve received of damage due to these two tornadoes have been minor so far, but his team will be examining that further.
Sills team is made up of one lead, who is a Civil Engineer and a couple of graduate students.
New Brunswick isn’t a tornado-prone area in Canada, and Sills says they wouldn’t be as frequent here as they would in Quebec or Ontario, but it’s definitely more frequent than Nova Scotia or Newfoundland.
“But what is pretty rare with these tornadoes is the time of year they occurred on November 1. That’s really late for any tornado across Canada, let alone New Brunswick. So that’s what’s interesting. The latest tornado on record in New Brunswick before was back in the 1960s and that, I think it was September 21 I believe,” Sills told our newsroom.
He says with reports of two tornadoes in New Brunswick on November 1, that makes for a very long season, with the first reported twister in Canada reported this year on March 16.
Sills says with a warming climate, the severe weather season will be extended.
