4 tornadoes hit eastern Ontario on day of Barrhaven storm, investigators find

Two moretornadoestouched down in eastern Ontario on the same day that two ripped through Ottawa's Barrhaven neighbourhood, according to a newinvestigation.

In a Wednesday blog post, the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP), a research group founded byWestern University, said two weaktornadoestouched down southeast of Ottawa on July 13.

One struckEmbrun, Ont., and another struckbetween Fournierand St-Bernardin, Ont.

Aground and drone survey team visited damaged sites at thoselocations andconfirmed the tornadoes hadoccurred, the NTP said.

The twotornadoes outside Ottawa were not as strong as those that hit Barrhaven on the same day.

TheBarrhaventornadoesdamagedat least 125 homesandreached an estimated maximum wind speedof 155 km/h. That speed categorizes them asEF1 onthe enhanced Fujita scale, a measure used to gauge the strength of twisters.

By contrast, those in Embrun and Fournier only reached a categorization of EF0 on the same scale.

In Embrun, thetornado started around 1 p.m. last Thursday andreached an estimated top wind speed of 125 km/h. The NTP survey found a narrow track of tree damage and some minor roof damage to several homes.

In Fournier, the tornado started just before2 p.m. and caused visible damage to trees and crops in the area. It reached a top wind speed of 115 km/h.

The NTP has tracked more than two dozen tornadoes in the region since 2018.

A brief recap of 5 years of tornado tracking in the Ottawa area

1 year ago

Duration 1:40

Western University's Northern Tornado Project has been tracking tornadoes across Ontario since 2018. Here's a brief history of tornadoes recorded by the project in the Ottawa area.