Barrhaven was struck by 2 tornadoes, researchers say

The south Ottawa suburb ofBarrhaven was hit by not one but two tornadoes on Thursday, researchers have confirmed.

The Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) released an investigation report Saturday concluding thatboth tornadoes had a maximumestimated wind speedof 155 km/h.

That putsthem in the EF1 category under the enhanced Fujitascale, which isused to measure the strength of tornadoes.

• Surveying the damage: How tornadoes are ranked after the sky clears

• Cleanup underway after tornado rips through Barrhaven

The organization, which was founded at Western University in 2017 to improve the understanding of tornadoes and other severe weather events, surveyed damage and reviewed videos shot in Barrhaven.

"We received two separate videos of funnel clouds and potential damage areas," saidFrancis Lavigne-Thriault, a research associate with NTP.

"So our ground survey crews went and checked out those two locations and sure enough, they found damage that was associated with the funnel clouds. That's what led us to believe that there's two tornadoes that happened, rather than what we previously thought was only one."

Crossing paths not uncommon

NTP found the main path of tornado damage ran for aboutfivekilometres, with a maximum width of 200 metres. A second path just one kilometre long was caused by a slightly earlier twister, NTP said.

Along both paths, homes sustained roof damage and broken windows.

• The Barrhaven tornado in pictures

The first tornado was found to have travelled from the southwest, leaving the worst damage in the area of Halley Street.The second tornado came from the south, crossing the first twister's path and hittingan area further south around Regulus Ridge most severely.

Lavigne-Thriaultsaid NTP just completed a study that looked at satellite imagery of tornado tracks captured over the past 30 years, and it shows that two storms crossing over isn't that unusual.

"It's just a coincidence that a tornado happens here, and then another storm forms and then it just happens to cross the path," he said.

"It's fairly common, it's not something that's really rare."

NTP said its survey team will continue to investigate damage over the weekend and that its assessments of the lengths and widths are preliminary.

It also looked into a tornadothat struck Mirabel, Que., the same day as the Barrhaven storm.