Environment Canada’s tornado database offers new insight into storm hunting

A collection of documents detailing tornadoes that have occurred in Canada over two centuries is now available to anyone with internet access.

The files are held at Environment Canada and were digitized and published online as part of a multi-year project led by the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) at Western University in London, Ontario.

Officially unveiled last week by the Michael Newark Research Group, the Tornado Archive contains reports, photographs and press clippings on Canadian tornadoes dating back to the first recorded tornado in the country in 1792.

The owner of the archive collected most of the material in the 1970s and 1980s when he worked as a meteorologist for Environment Canada.

Newark, who attended last week’s unveiling, said he began building the archive because no one had done it before.

“I was shocked to find that there was virtually nothing in the scientific literature, not exactly nothing, but pretty much nothing about tornadoes,” he told CBC Radio. Afternoon ride on Tuesday.

The idea came about when Newark appeared on CBC Radio in Toronto in April 1974 to discuss tornado that hit Windsor, destroying the local curling club arena and leaving nine people dead.

The tornado was one of more than 150 that occurred on both sides of the border on April 3 and 4 during a historic event 1974 Super Explosion. At least 335 people have died in 13 states and Ontario.

When longtime CBC host Bruce Smith asked Newark where tornadoes occurred and how often they occurred, he was unable to provide an answer.

For a period of 10 years, Newark and a group of volunteers searched libraries, old newspapers and books to identify old tornadoes and gather all available information — wind speeds, path lengths and widths, damage reports, time of year, direction of travel and more.

The result was an unprecedented database of Canadian tornadoes that has proven valuable to researchers over the years, including the NTP, an organization founded with a similar goal of documenting every tornado that touches down in Canada.

“You can definitely see that he put his heart and soul into building this archive… of hundreds and hundreds of files,” said David Sills, executive director of NTP.

“There’s a lot of information in there that’s not directly related to tornadoes that’s also interesting. Little notes in the margins about how people reacted or types of damage that were odd.”

The documents were digitized by Environment Canada and sent to NTP, which added metadata to the files before uploading them to the Western Libraries website. Only the files related to the Ontario events have been uploaded so far, but the rest will be made available in the coming months.

Sills noted that several interesting items have already appeared in the new online archive, including previously unseen footage someone shot of the massive tornado that hit Woodstock and Waterford on Aug. 7, 1979. The tornado claimed two lives and caused an estimated $100 million in damage.

According to Newark’s handwritten notes, the Super 8 footage was shot by Dr. Dafoe from the window of his home at 38 Chaucer Place in Woodstock.

Newark’s tireless work also helped to obtain information for NTP comprehensive tornado panelSills said. The dashboard dates back to 1980, but the plan is to account for tornadoes dating back to 1792.

Making the archive public will allow Canadians to better understand the risks to health and property that tornadoes pose, Newark said. The data could also prove valuable in emergency planning, building code development and for insurance companies to assess risk.

“You can think of nuclear power plants, disease control labs, hospitals, factories, all kinds of buildings like that that benefit from knowing about tornado incidents and the risk of tornadoes,” Sills said.