As it turns out, it was a tornado that touched down in the Fergus area on Sunday night.
The Western University Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) had researchers on the ground Monday, and they confirmed the storm produced an EF-0 tornado. They typically produce winds between 100-130 km/h, enough to bring town tree limbs and powerlines, as well as snap trees. That made-up most of the damage reported in Fergus.
“When the line of storms was going through the Fergus area, we did notice there was rotation on radar and even what we call a tornado debris signature on radar, meaning it was detecting debris in the air,” said NTP, Executive Director, Dr. David Sills. “That’s usually only detected with a tornado, so we had a pretty good idea it was a tornado happening.”
He said while his teams were checking out the path of damage, they found the tornado continued farther east than first believed.
“There may be longer tract here. We certainly saw that on radar that there was a long-lived area of rotation. So, we’ll see if we ended up with a longer tornado or even more than one tornado.”
Sills said although uncommon, November tornadoes aren’t unheard of as long as the conditions are right. He added his team has seen tornadoes in December.
This latest storm comes nearly three months to the day after an EF-2 tore through the northern edge of Ayr on August 17.
“That tornado that went through Ayr turned out to be the strongest tornado in a populated area anywhere in Canada this year,” said Sills. “Most of the tornadoes across Canada were EF-0, EF-1.”
Sills said the researchers will continue their efforts and expects them to release more information about the Fergus twister in the coming days.