A thunderstorm ripped through Thunder Bay, Ont., Tuesday evening, leaving downed trees, power lines and damage to area properties in its wake.
The fast-moving storm touched down in the city around 5:00 p.m. on Canada Day, according to Environment Canada.
Area weather stations recorded only 5 to 10 millimetres of rain, but it was mixed with 90 kilometre per hour wind gusts.
“Those [wind gusts] are strong enough to do some damage. So we’ve seen some pictures of down, down trees, down power lines, shingles off roofs and things like this. So yes, that’s definitely strong enough to do some property damage,” said David Rodgers, a severe weather meteorologist with Environment Canada.
Rodgers said the storm passed through the entire city, but the south side of Thunder Bay was hit hardest, particularly in the Westfort area.
In a post on social media Tuesday night, Synergy North said crews had been dispatched to the Westfort area to a power outage. The utility company’s outage map shows power has been restored in the area.
Not a tornado: researcher
The damage occurred after an isolated but intense storm passed through, said David Sills, director of the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) at Western University.
“From the evidence we have seen we have determined that it was not a tornado that was responsible, but instead strong straightline winds,” he said in an email to CBC.
He said they would need to do more investigating to determine if it was a downburst.
Downbursts are powerful winds that descend from a thunderstorm. Unlike a tornado, which produces a wind funnel from the ground up, a downburst produces strong winds that move downward from a storm.
“Given the light damage – and the many other events we are investigating – we elected not to investigate further,” said Sills.
Some properties damaged
Tyson McNally, owner of Dirty Hands Disposal, spent the morning driving around Westfort with his trailer helping clean up the destruction after the storm. He said he volunteered to pick up storm debris in the neighbourhood for free.
McNally said it was more common to see large storms cause significant damage out in the bush or more rural areas like Lappe, and that it was unusual to see this many downed trees in an urban neighbourhood.
He said he plans to take most of the branches and logs he collects to the dump, but may keep some to use as firewood.
Ron Fuchek, a retired fire captain living in Westfort, said he saw multiple trees down on streets in the neighbourhood. He said he had been away at the Murillo Car Show and returned Wednesday morning.
“I come home and there’s this mini-disaster in the neighborhood,” said Fuchek. Some of the soffit and fascia blew off his house during the high winds, he said.
A roughly 70-year-old lilac tree planted by Fuchek’s parents split during the storm.
“I’m cleaning it up, but it’s got one young shoot coming up, it’ll still be there, another one in its place,” he said.
