3 tornadoes hit Quebec on Sunday, Environment Canada confirms

Three tornadoes touched down in Quebec last weekend all in oneday.

Environment Canada confirmed in a statementthat "at least three tornadoes and a microburst affected the province" Sunday.

"It's quite unusual," meteorologistMarie-veGiguretold CBC News Wednesday.

"On average in Quebec, we confirm about six tornadoes every summer, so three on the same day is definitely a rare occurrence."

The tornadoes carved paths several kilometres long in the Lac St-Jean and the Mont-Laurier regions, as well as the Laurentides Wildlife Reserve between Quebec City and the Saguenay.

• Hiding in a small hole, Lac Saint-Jean cyclist survives possible tornado

Two of the tornadoes the ones in Lac St-Jean and near Mont-Laurier hit Class 2 on the Fujita scale, meaning their winds reached 180 kilometres per hour.

Their paths reached almost five kilometres and the one in the wildlife reserve was seen crossing the highway, Gigure said.

"We had reports of downed trees, uprooted trees, a lot of houses damaged, roofs torn off, even two houses completely destroyed," she said.

The combination of heat, humidity and strong winds Sunday made up "all the ingredients for a tornado," she said.

To establish that the extreme winds were tornadoes, the weather agency reviewed damage on homes and trees to determine its speed and where it touched down.

Photos and videos submitted to the agency and on social media by witnesses helped determine what happened, she added.

"A tornado is a violently rotating column of air and it has to touch the ground and have a cloud above, and we have all of that on video," the meteorologist said.