Two F1 tornadoes open the 2010 season in Southern Ontario

Environment Canada has confirmed the first two tornadoes of the 2010 season in Southern Ontario.
An F1 tornado with estimated wind speeds of between 117 km-h and 180 km-h tracked eastward near the villages of Dalkeith and Ste-Anne-de-Prescott at about 5 p.m. on June 5, 2010. The damage path was eight kilometres long and ranged from 20 to 30 metres wide before dissipating at the Ontario-Quebec border, Environment Canada said.
Investigators documented extensive damage to barns, grain bins, corn silos, houses and mobile homes, as well as countless broken and uprooted trees and broken power poles, an Environment Canada statement says.
In the early morning hours of June 6, around 3 a.m., a second F1 tornado, about one-kilometre wide, touched down in Essex County, along the shore of Lake Erie, southwest of Leamington.
There is also a one-kilometre wide and five-kilometre long track of straight-line wind damage associated with the same storm, Environment Canada added.
“Environment Canada continues its survey today, as there is still a 35-kilometre-long stretch of damage that remains to be investigated,” the statement says.
Of the 80 or so tornadoes reported in Canada in each year, Ontario receives the largest number – on average, about one-third of them, says Glenn McGillivray, the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reductions’ managing director. That’s about two per 10,000 square kilometres.
In and of itself, a tornado in Leamington is not a rarity. But the time at which this one struck was unusual, McGillivray observed.
“Unfortunately the hour at which the storm struck – which proves wrong the fallacy that tornadic storms can’t strike at night – placed more lives at risk because most would be asleep at 3am.,” McGillivray observed.
The storms highlight the need for weather radios, a broadcast service that emits alarms when warnings are issued by Environment Canada, McGillivray said.