Canada Needs Better Tornado Warnings: Here's How London, ON is Leading the Charge

Imagine a monster storm ripping through your town without warning. Scary, right? That's been the reality for many Canadians lately, as tornadoes have become increasingly unpredictable. In Quebec, for instance, Environment Canada issued a timely tornado warning for Lachute on July 24, 2023. Although a tornado did touch down soon after, three other tornadoes weren't caught in time, leaving people vulnerable.

Tornadoes are hitting Quebec and Ontario more often than before. Environment Canada has made strides in improving their warnings, but the system still misses the mark frequently. According to the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) based at Western University in London, Ontario, forecasters only managed to predict 35% of tornadoes accurately in 2022. Yikes!

When a tornado is suspected, NTP researchers are quick to jump into action. They hit the field to gather data and feed their findings back to Environment Canada. But even with high-tech gadgets and massive amounts of data, predicting these chaotic storms remains a tough challenge. David Sills, NTP's executive director, highlights that trust erodes when warnings come too late or not at all.

So, what's being done to change the game? Environment Canada has upgraded their radar and satellite systems and provided advanced training to their meteorologists. They're issuing more warnings via the AlertReady system, which buzzes your phone and disrupts your TV and radio broadcasts. In fact, these alerts have saved lives by giving people a heads-up to get to safety.

Interestingly, the number of tornado warnings has skyrocketed—not necessarily because there are more tornadoes, but because detection technology has gotten better. In 2019, Quebec had only three tornado alerts; by 2023, that number had jumped to 85! Canada is essentially playing catch-up with our neighbor to the south, deploying new models and flexible geographic alert zones to stay one step ahead of these storms.

One of the coolest things coming out of London, Ontario, is the work being done by NTP. They've developed the Michael Newark Digitized Tornado Archive, featuring data and scans of tornado records dating back to 1792. Talk about a deep dive into the past to better prepare for the future!

They've also launched an advanced dashboard to help in tracking and analyzing Canadian tornado data from 1980 onwards. The aim is clear: understand these violent storms better and improve our chances of predicting them accurately. Further, NTP has been refining Canada's Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale to make it more precise.

The NTP team isn't just about data, though. They're also crowd-sourcing information and employing machine learning to analyze things like treefall to detect and assess tornado damage. Their projects aim to mitigate harm and prepare communities for what might be on the horizon—a necessity as climate change continues to stir up more extreme weather.

With initiatives like NTP, and ongoing efforts to ramp up training and technology, Canada is on its way to better tornado prediction and, ultimately, saving more lives. If you're in London, Ontario, or elsewhere in Canada, rest a little easier knowing that strides are being made to shield you from these unpredictable monstrosities.