Northern Tornadoes Project 🇨🇦

Western faculty, students perform at International Viola Congress in Paris - Western News Faculty and students from Western's Don Wright Faculty of Music recently attended and performed at the 50th International Viola Congress in Paris.

🎻A viola quartet from Western recently took the stage at the 50th International Viola Congress in Paris, joining hundreds of violists from around the world. Four music students, along with prof Sharon Wei, performed "Sounding Tornadoes", a lecture recital collaboration with @westernuntp.bsky.social

Heads up - the first info session for the CSSL Summer Internship Program is tonight!

Find the details here: uwo.ca/cssl/interns...

Still working on it - it's surprisingly complex.

Dive into real-world research and fieldwork with the CSSL Summer Internship Program!

Learn more and apply here: uwo.ca/cssl/interns...

Don't miss your chance to gain hands-on experience with leading tornado and hail experts in the field.

Applications close on January 26th.

These papers highlight complementary remote sensing approaches that can help improve spatial coverage and consistency of tornado intensity assessments. Grateful for @cssl.ca team who made these studies possible!

"Evaluating the Utility of NDVI as a Damage Indicator for Crops in the Enhanced Fujita Scale" tests how NDVI changes can be used to identify crop damage from tornadoes, describes limitations, and shows how NDVI can supplement ground surveys in agricultural areas (doi.org/10.1175/JAMC...).

"Synthetic Aperture Radar as a Tool for Tornado Classification in Forested Areas" demonstrates how SAR can reveal tornado damage signatures in strong tornadoes, offering a way to provide EF-scale ratings in heavily forested regions where optical imagery struggles (doi.org/10.1080/0703...).

I'm happy to share two @cssl.ca open-access remote sensing papers that are both related to alternative methods of classifying tornado damage! 🧵:

The NTP has confirmed 6 more Prairie tornadoes with ratings EF2 to EF0-Default. Four are based on AI-assisted satellite review of forest areas in AB / SK while two (plus an update of an existing tornado) in AB are based on reports from Riley Weekes. Details: uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202... #ABstorm #SKstorm

Looks like only 10 tornadoes made it to the map somehow. Here is the same regional map showing all 11 tornadoes.

The NTP has confirmed 11 new ON tornadoes based on AI-assisted satellite review. All caused EF1-EF2 tree damage.

These are in addition to 5 tornadoes already confirmed in ON via AI-assisted satellite review. All sectors in Ontario have now been reviewed.

Details: uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

#ONstorm

The NTP has confirmed nine new Quebec tornadoes for 2025 based on our end-of-season satellite review, assisted by an AI detection algorithm. The damage in each case was only to trees, with one tornado rated EF2 and eight rated EF1.

Details: uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

#meteoQC

The NTP has confirmed a tornado over water (waterspout) that was reported off the coast of Nova Scotia near Rocky Bay on October 25.

Details at uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202....

#NSstorm

Tornado over Lake Huron on Oct 24 The NTP has confirmed a tornado over water (waterspout) on Lake Huron near Bayfield, ON on Oct 24

Sorry - URL is uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

The NTP has confirmed a new tornado over water (waterspout) that occurred over Lake Huron northwest of Bayfield, ON yesterday.

Details at the NTP blog here:

uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

#ONstorm

The NTP has confirmed five concurrent tornadoes over water (waterspouts) over Lake Erie off Long Point on Oct 21.

Details at the NTP blog here: uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

#ONstorm

Deadly North Dakota Tornado Was a Rare EF5, Weather Service Says Experts reassessed the damage from a tornado that left three people dead in June, and gave it the strongest possible rating on the tornado scale.

The @nytimes.com highlighted work from #WesternU's Northern Tornadoes Project to reclassify a tornado that tore through rural North Dakota in June as an EF5, the highest category on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. @westernuntp.bsky.social

Yes, we are developing several different types of wind estimation tools that can be used in cases where the traditional EF scale can’t or is limited. Expect progress on that in the off-season.

The U.S. sees its first EF-5 tornado in more than 4,400 days - The Weather Network A violent, EF-5 tornado struck Enderlin, N.D., on June 20, 2025--the first instance of a twister given that designation in the U.S. since the Moore, Okla., event in May 2013.

NTP partner 'The Weather Network' also has an article on the Enderlin, ND EF5 tornado that the NTP helped to rate. www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weat...

Good New York Times article on the upgrade to EF5 - mentioning that the Northern Tornadoes Project was called upon to assist. Gift article link so should be fully accessible.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/w...

Drone photo courtesy Brian Emfinger and used with permission.

The CSSL/NTP assisted the US National Weather Service (NWS) with their upgrading of the official rating of the June 2025 Enderlin, ND tornado from EF3 to EF5.

Announced by the NWS today, it’s the first EF5-rated tornado in the US since 2013.

Details here: uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

Image B. Emfinger

Excited to announce that my method for estimating wind speeds based on lofted debris in tornadoes was used as contextual evidence for upgrading the Enderlin, ND tornado to an EF5!

doi.org/10.1175/MWR-...

#NDwx #Enderlin #EF5 #Tornado

The first forested area to be searched with NTP's new AI tool - Northern Ontario east of Lake Superior - turned up five tornadoes, including one rated EF2. These were all manually verified and documented.

Details here:

uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

#ONstorm

Lots more to come...

Today we have a special blog post on a new NTP tool for AI-assisted satellite review, with the method described by its developer - the NTP's Daniel Butt. The tool is being used experimentally and is already producing results. More on that shortly!

uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

Following a thorough satellite review for storm tracks of interest, the NTP has confirmed three new EF1 tornadoes from earlier in the season in Quebec.

The first two occurred on April 29 and the third on June 23.

Details at:

uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

#meteoQC

The NTP has confirmed three new tornadoes and upgraded a downburst damage rating in Northern Ontario.

Details here:

uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

#ONstorm

The NTP has confirmed four EF2 tornadoes in western Quebec during the late afternoon and evening hours of September 5. In each case there was considerable tree damage.

Full details can be found here:

uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202...

#meteoQC

Multi-Level In-Situ Measurements During a Direct Hit by a Significant Tornado A rare direct hit by a significant tornado on a weather station is documented, with a peak 1-s wind gust of 53.1 m/s (191.2 km/h) and a surface pressure deficit of 16.0 hPa recorded. Even more unco...

New paper alert!

"Multi-Level In-Situ Measurements During a Direct Hit by a Significant Tornado" in A-O.

Observations from a 2010 F2 tornado at a Harrow, ON-area wind farm show that peak winds do increase closer to the ground, supporting DOW radar measurements/analysis.

doi.org/10.1080/0705...

With the 10 tornadoes added today from past months, the 2025 national tornado count goes to 66. Which is tied for 2017 at this point in the season for the *least* number of tornadoes since NTP began in 2017. And is almost half of what Canada experienced last year.

Will be looking into the why...

An additional 4 tornadoes have been confirmed by NTP for Quebec from June based on satellite imagery review. There was 1 EF2 tornado and 3 EF1 tornadoes.

Details at the NTP blog here: uwo.ca/ntp/blog/202.... Tornadoes are plotted on a regional map below.

#meteoQC #QCstorm