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Southern Ontario Weather Discussion

snowstormcanuck

By snowstormcanuck,
in Lakes/Ohio Valley

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Torchageddon

Torchageddon

Posted
Posted

The 2nd tornado of Ontario confirmed for this year was in or near Listowel ON during the same day that the Mildmay one occurred. This one was an EF0 and had a path of 8 km which for an EF0 seems awfully long to me. BTW, EC did not warn this town either during their most embarrassing day in history  :whistle: . Ontario's 3rd tornado might be confirmed in Jarvis ON from Wednesday's storms to the south which brought some large hail at times. Looks to be EF0 as well based on pics.

 

Has anyone else noticed how forecasts locally recently (last 3 weeks) have been absolutely terrible? I started noticing just over 2 weeks ago when TWN would forecast all day rain and then not a drop would fall, same with overcast conditions. Its mostly been forecast high temps. that bust and every day nearly its way off. Its mostly been busting too low but this week they busted too high twice :unsure: . Wednesday was one of the most dramatic examples yet, it was forecast to be all day rain and thunder-showers but instead it was just cloudy early in the morning and then by noon it was sunny and stayed sunny with few clouds until 11:30 pm that night when some rain fell! The temp. was also higher. Multiple times now the temp. has been off 6ºC in both directions. I started checking Environment Canada as well to see if they were doing the same and they were. On Weds. they forecast 16ºC for Mount Forest and it barely made it to 12ºC today there. Others I've talked to notice this as well.

 

BTW, it was really cold yesterday morning; so cold that the heat had to be turned on for a whole hour and it was just like the middle of winter  <_< .

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Torchageddon

Torchageddon

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Posted

 

I have never experienced a spring so devoid of any thunderstorm activity. I heard a rumble back in the middle of May with that closed low. That's been it since I've been back!

 

I just woke up and guess what? A tornado warning near me with a cell 20 minutes away that Dave Patrick tweeted:

Dave Patrick @wwxchaser - 9m - Tornado north of walkerton. #onstorn pic.twitter.com/uWCwUffjeo

View more photos and videos

WTH!!?! Another tornado near me? Its very windy right now but I'm tripping!

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Torchageddon

Torchageddon

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Dave Patrick @wwxchaser 7h - Models are continuing to indicate a tornado threat in SW Ontario from Goderich to KW to Hamilton southward from 3-8 pm. #onstorm

Dave Patrick @wwxchaser 5h - Tornado watch now in effect areas north of Hwy 401. #onstorm

Dave Patrick @wwxchaser 3h - Tornado north of walkerton. #onstorm

BqWyPyrCQAAUIM6.jpg

Dave Patrick @wwxchaser 2h - Second tornado delayed call from 10-15 mins ago. Storm elevated now. Moving south #onstorm

Dave Patrick @wwxchaser 2h - Second tornado north of Hanover tracking E. #onstorm

BqXBLUWCMAAqeRb.jpg

Dave Patrick @wwxchaser 6m - Will upload my tornado video tonight. 2, maybe 3 tornadoes and lots of funnels. The Angus tornado was the cell we were on and lost to speed

Dave Patrick is the MAN, he did it again! Always comes through for my region in terms of chasing. Here is more:

 

2ah9qav.jpg

 

Storm Front Coming Ashore in Port Elgin ON this morning at 9:30 am.

 

2vccgt3.jpg

 

This was shot in my town, but can't make out if that is a wall cloud or what.

 

2zjbzib.png

 

This is the EC radar showing when the tornado might have been on the ground near me. Can't make out anything of course, TWN radar was not working for me. Got some others though but too late which sucks.

 

axxohj.jpg

 

This incredible shot was taken at the Owen Sound Billy Bishop Regional Airport but no exact time was given. This looks pretty darn amazing for up there!  :o

 

I knew big stuff was heading for us today when the SPC put us in the Slight Risk category, first for 2014. A tornado was possibly 3 minutes to my north but I think it was closer to Chesley which is surreal for the 6th time this has happened since 2005. The biggest story is the destructive tornado that looked to me at one point being a wedge hit Angus Ontario and just ripped up a neighborhood, this is huge! Pictures are coming in and I got some footage from news outlets but not sure how much will be online. Didn't lose power thankfully. What a day and a grand total of 0 posts from others from Ontario, well done!

 

I'll see if I can get more later on today's events.

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Torontonian

Torontonian

Posted
Posted

 

 

2ah9qav.jpg

 

axxohj.jpg

 

This incredible shot was taken at the Owen Sound Billy Bishop Regional Airport but no exact time was given. This looks pretty darn amazing for up there!  :o

 

I knew big stuff was heading for us today when the SPC put us in the Slight Risk category, first for 2014. A tornado was possibly 3 minutes to my north but I think it was closer to Chesley which is surreal for the 6th time this has happened since 2005. The biggest story is the destructive tornado that looked to me at one point being a wedge hit Angus Ontario and just ripped up a neighborhood, this is huge! Pictures are coming in and I got some footage from news outlets but not sure how much will be online. Didn't lose power thankfully. What a day and a grand total of 0 posts from others from Ontario, well done!

 

I'll see if I can get more later on today's events.

 

Hey, i was following this thread a bit too.

Thanks for effort.

 

Tornado was classified as Ef2 in Angus etc....

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on_wx

on_wx

Posted
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Storms skipped town again heard one crack of thunder with the line as it fell apart north of KW. Shame, got really excited as Waterloo Region was surrounded by tornado warnings. Healthy shelf cloud was coming in on the far northwest that took no more than 5 minutes to break apart completely. Such a tease  :whistle:

 

There's a big gap in storm reports across Midwestern Ontario including places like Wellington, Bruce, Grey, and Perth Counties, so it seems as though the storms weren't particularly intense in these areas during the blanket tornado warnings. My blood was pumping at the time though, especially considering the limited ways to receive information about ongoing storms in this province.

 

Rob Kuhn was live on CP24 the evening of the storms and said Environment Canada had received no other reports of damage outside of Angus. It took up to a day for reports to come in across the GTA. It always surprises me how little even Environment Canada knows about ongoing storm events. With all those first responders out there, emergency managers, utilities, spotters, chasers, and public reports you'd think there would be a better system in place to receive real-time information. Other good examples would be the Dufferin County blizzard conditions when 400 cars were stranded, and the Kitchener June 2013 flash flood. Environment Canada were oblivious for hours.

 

Edit, we can't forget the 2010 Midland tornado either. It took 45 minutes for information to reach Environment Canada that a large tornado tracked through the city. By the time they issued the tornado warning for Midland the supercell was already at least 30km east of the city, and the 2nd damaging tornado had already lifted near Washago.

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on_wx

on_wx

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Also another observation, I found interpreting tornado warnings incredibly difficult under EC's new warning format in their text bulletins.

 

The old method any time a tornado warning was issued and expanded would be this header

TORNADO WARNING FOR:

=NEW= MOUNT FOREST - ARTHUR - NORTHERN WELLINGTON COUNTY

TORNADO WARNING FOR:

=NEW= LISTOWEL - MILVERTON - NORTHERN PERTH COUNTY

MOUNT FOREST - ARTHUR - NORTHERN WELLINGTON COUNTY

 

 

The new system, depending on if a warning region is under a severe thunderstorm warning at the time of tornado warning issuance...

 

TORNADO WARNING FOR:

MOUNT FOREST - ARTHUR - NORTHERN WELLINGTON COUNTY

 

TORNADO WARNING - REPLACES SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR:

LISTOWEL - MILVERTON - NORTHERN PERTH COUNTY.

 

 

In the fast pace of tornado warnings being issued on Tuesday the text bulletins were becoming hard to follow and keep track of who was under a warning or who was being canceled, or reissued.

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Torchageddon

Torchageddon

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Nice to hear from you guys after the tornado day, thanks.

 

Thanks for the updates. I'm up in Alaska and its nice to see whats going on back home. Not much for thunder here.

 

How warm is it there? I'm getting mad about our temperatures because its barely getting into the upper 20s here and we haven't gotten to 30ºC here yet...just crap. Only good if you work outdoors. Too cloudy like today. Also, I posted about this on May 24 earlier on this page but the forecasts are still really bad that I've noticed out of TWN and EC too. Today in Hanover and many other parts this was suppose to be one of the warmest days of 2014, it actually feels cool!  :blink: I haven't bothered to look at local forecasts because they are becoming useless right now. I want to check out a temp. anomaly map of North America to see how June as progressed so far, my favorite month. Any quick links would be greatly appreciated because I don't have time to search for it.

 

Storms skipped town again heard one crack of thunder with the line as it fell apart north of KW. Shame, got really excited as Waterloo Region was surrounded by tornado warnings. Healthy shelf cloud was coming in on the far northwest that took no more than 5 minutes to break apart completely. Such a tease  :whistle:

 

There's a big gap in storm reports across Midwestern Ontario including places like Wellington, Bruce, Grey, and Perth Counties, so it seems as though the storms weren't particularly intense in these areas during the blanket tornado warnings. My blood was pumping at the time though, especially considering the limited ways to receive information about ongoing storms in this province.

 

I didn't hear anything from K-W, this explains why!  :yikes: Sounds like a colossal tease. Your right, the storms weren't strong here but the storms (thunderstorm strength) on August 20, 2009 weren't either if that makes any sense. It was similar to August 24, 2011 IMO. Another tornado was confirmed from last Tuesday in Stroud ON where some weak damage was shown on TV. The way the tornado warnings were handled this time was not that good either, they left the TOR warnings on way too long again well after the threat was gone. I don't see the problem with the new warning bulletins though, seems alright.

 

I said this before, but The Weather Network here is continuing to get even worse. Every day I turn it on something really stupid pops up now, but the biggest problem is the programming and what actually fills up time. The local forecast is too long now, then Force of Nature is taking up far too much time at 1 minute every 10 minutes which started years ago. Instead of removing that or changing it to less in your face, they actually have extended FON segments twice a hour! If not that, a pre-recorded segment about Science behind the Weather or Around the World in 80 Seconds (completely pointless and just downright annoying as hell) take up yet another 1+ minute. What your left with is sometimes as little as 1.5 minutes of time to talk about the real weather across Canada and even then they pop in with more clips that FON should have covered and sound bytes from presenters around Canada. They used to spend a lot of time on weather maps of all types and real information...but its becoming dumbed down and TWCish. I watched an old clip that lasted 30 minutes back from 2007 I had on VHS and was amazed at how much better it was back even that short time ago compared to now...rich with information and maps. The bad changes really started late 2010 but just in the last 10 months things are accelerating.

So at times the presenter will only have a minute of screen time per 10 minutes at this point. A lot of the time these segments are recorded and aired for hours after so that brings me to this point...how many minutes of original video with these presenters is there in a day and what is their salary for just getting 5 minutes per day of screen time? That's nothing folks! This changes during Storm Mode of course but I'm talking normal periods. The latest grievance I had was sometime last week (Wednesday?) when a bow echo was coming from MI into extreme SW ON and Mark R was on location to intercept it and display its "amazing" shelf and effects. They kept teasing how exciting this was going to be and how they'd show it, etc. They were alternating between that and the southern AB flood threat. I thought that bow might weaken or fall apart before getting to Mark and it did weaken...after a slight change in clouds in the distance, they did not go back to him as advertised!! Just radar and no mention as to anything going on ground-wise! False luring. They may have later shown a brief clip of some rain falling and Mark running again but nothing notable <_< . TWN on-location content and live coverage sucks so bad its laughable. Nothing exciting has ever been shown live or otherwise, their Storm Chaser's period that ended yielded no tornadoes like every year (even if there are tons around during US trips lol), and resort to showing other's footage or stuff from 2009!! They have to fake urgency or action by their acting skills like running to cars or shouting when nothing is occurring. Even TWC has far surpassed TWN in this category!

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on_wx

on_wx

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I said this before, but The Weather Network here is continuing to get even worse. 

 

I learned almost all I know about weather from growing up watching TWN. Especially the Christ Scott days when he was a full-time on air met. He'd run segments on how different weather forms, etc. as general meteorological lessons on the basic yet important aspects of weather. His on air personality was very similar to Dr. Greg Forbes over on TWC. Haven't watched TWN in a while, but when I do it's cringe-worthy. They even have the across Canada commuting conditions which seem to focus on the GTA, Calgary, and Edmonton.

 

5th tornado confirmed in Ontario. EF1 tornado tracking from near Tottenham, through New Tecumseth, and east to the 400. Full survey tomorrow. Video:

 

Warning very foul language. Best watched on mute.

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Torontonian

Torontonian

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I learned almost all I know about weather from growing up watching TWN. Especially the Christ Scott days when he was a full-time on air met. He'd run segments on how different weather forms, etc. as general meteorological lessons on the basic yet important aspects of weather. His on air personality was very similar to Dr. Greg Forbes over on TWC. Haven't watched TWN in a while, but when I do it's cringe-worthy. They even have the across Canada commuting conditions which seem to focus on the GTA, Calgary, and Edmonton.

 

5th tornado confirmed in Ontario. EF1 tornado tracking from near Tottenham, through New Tecumseth, and east to the 400. Full survey tomorrow. Video:

 

Warning very foul language. Best watched on mute.

 

There were two confirmed EF1's yesterday.

One around New Tecumseth, Ont. and another near Laurel, Ont.

That makes 5th and 6th this season so far.

 

Maybe someone can start Southern Ontario Summer discussion thread. Probably more tornadoes and heavy storms will happen this summer....

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Snowstorms

Snowstorms

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Not sure if you guys want to revive this thread or start a new one but...anyway...

 

rain wasn't nearly as heavy as I was expecting.

 

I think we should start a new thread. This one will get too congested as the weeks go by. 

 

We had a brief downpour in the GTA for a bit, but otherwise it was light rain for the most part. We just saw our coldest night of the season last night. YYZ got down to 3C. It won't be long till we see a killer frost to cap the season off. All the trees on my street have changed colour. 

 

How was Summer? 

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blizzardof96

blizzardof96

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I think we should start a new thread. This one will get too congested as the weeks go by. 

 

We had a brief downpour in the GTA for a bit, but otherwise it was light rain for the most part. We just saw our coldest night of the season last night. YYZ got down to 3C. It won't be long till we see a killer frost to cap the season off. All the trees on my street have changed colour. 

 

How was Summer? 

Agree. Excited to get the thread going again this year. Was in montreal during the weekend and we got a nice soaking... analogs pointing towards an interesting november for the lakes/interior. We haven't had a significant november snowfall wise in a while.

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Snowstorms

Snowstorms

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Agree. Excited to get the thread going again this year. Was in montreal during the weekend and we got a nice soaking... analogs pointing towards an interesting november for the lakes/interior. We haven't had a significant november snowfall wise in a while.

 

Thats amazing. This summer in general wasn't too bad. In my opinion it was quite boring considering we didn't have much severe weather to track. I haven't done much research into this Winter yet, but i will be doing so in the coming week or two. Whats your preliminary thoughts? 

 

I think the Arctic Sea ice behaviour plays a role in the AO/NAO situation. I dont know if there's any peer reviewed papers on that but its an interesting anomaly to consider. This year we saw a similar Arctic sea ice minimum as last year. A far cry from the years that preceded it, where we saw a bad pattern setting up from 2007-2012. Hopefully those bad years weren't the start of a new trend and we see a recovery in sea ice anomalies. Anyways, i'm getting off topic, haha. 

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blizzardof96

blizzardof96

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Thats amazing. This summer in general wasn't too bad. In my opinion it was quite boring considering we didn't have much severe weather to track. I haven't done much research into this Winter yet, but i will be doing so in the coming week or two. Whats your preliminary thoughts? 

 

I think the Arctic Sea ice behaviour plays a role in the AO/NAO situation. I dont know if there's any peer reviewed papers on that but its an interesting anomaly to consider. This year we saw a similar Arctic sea ice minimum as last year. A far cry from the years that preceded it, where we saw a bad pattern setting up from 2007-2012. Hopefully those bad years weren't the start of a new trend and we see a recovery in sea ice anomalies. Anyways, i'm getting off topic, haha. 

Nice to hear from you snowstorms! My prelim outlook from Sept 1st is posted on my blog. Regarding the AO/NAO situation their is some fairly strong support for a +AO spike as we head towards november(goes part and parcel with the +AAM spike beginning right now and unfavourable ST anoms). My analog years agree with this so we may very well have to depend on a favourable pacific in november(before weak NAM prospects begin to bring the NAO/AO down). Note the strong wave 2 tendency in my Nov analog set:

post-7879-0-51899400-1412642344_thumb.pn

 

Many factors do support a -EPO coming up in Nov(GOA warm pool, nino like WC, -QBO). I reversed the colour table below to show the -QBO correlation. Notice how the -QBO pattern correlates to a pattern favouring strat wave breaking(wave 1/2). This helps set up a colder dec-feb period if it works out in the EPO region.

post-7879-0-93276400-1412642197_thumb.gi

 

For the rest of winter, solar is going to be a huge factor. If we get the monthly mean SSN over the 90 mark we could be in some trouble with the NAM state in DJF(may see a 79-80 or 58-59 type of progression which favours a more +AO/NAO). Interestingly enough, those years were pretty decent snowfall wise in TO, especially 58-59 which was well AN. The KOE/SAI/ENSO positioning will also be huge but I suspect that the NAM gets a lot of attention this winter.

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Snowstorms

Snowstorms

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Nice to hear from you snowstorms! My prelim outlook from Sept 1st is posted on my blog. Regarding the AO/NAO situation their is some fairly strong support for a +AO spike as we head towards november(goes part and parcel with the +AAM spike beginning right now and unfavourable ST anoms). My analog years agree with this so we may very well have to depend on a favourable pacific in november(before weak NAM prospects begin to bring the NAO/AO down). Note the strong wave 2 tendency in my Nov analog set:

attachicon.gifFJLc9bE0Dh.png

 

Many factors do support a -EPO coming up in Nov(GOA warm pool, nino like WC, -QBO). I reversed the colour table below to show the -QBO correlation. Notice how the -QBO pattern correlates to a pattern favouring strat wave breaking(wave 1/2). This helps set up a colder dec-feb period if it works out in the EPO region.

attachicon.gif99.234.174.59.278.18.35.39.gif

 

For the rest of winter, solar is going to be a huge factor. If we get the monthly mean SSN over the 90 mark we could be in some trouble with the NAM state in DJF(may see a 79-80 or 58-59 type of progression which favours a more +AO/NAO). Interestingly enough, those years were pretty decent snowfall wise in TO, especially 58-59 which was well AN. The KOE/SAI/ENSO positioning will also be huge but I suspect that the NAM gets a lot of attention this winter.

 

Yes I just seen your outlook and you highlighted alot of key points and factors to consider for this Winter. Cant disagree, amazing work man. Another thing you want to consider in the AO/NAO tandem is the October Snow index out in Eurasia. Depending how the snow develops and progresses through this month in Eurasia will be a key indicator as to how the NAO/AO will end up for this season. 

 

The -EPO was one of the sole reasons we had such a brutal winter last season and it goes to show you how the Pacific can overwhelm the Atlantic signal. For the better part of this year we've seen a weak-moderately positive PDO index which could perhaps make way for a potential Aleutian Low (common in El Nino's). Hopefully we see a more active Subtropical Jet Stream so we can get better storm development. 

 

And I agree with your Solar analysis. Watching the Geomagnetic conditions and AP index is important in understanding how it can effect the Hadley cell and ultimately the placement of the jet streams/oscillations.  

 

Whats your key analogs for this Winter? I personally like 03-04, 04-05 and 76-77. I got a few others but those are my primary ones after analyzing current variables.

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blizzardof96

blizzardof96

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Whats your key analogs for this Winter? I personally like 03-04, 04-05 and 76-77. I got a few others but those are my primary ones after analyzing current variables.

Right now I like 51-52, 03-04(with obvious problems),93-94, 69-70 and 02-03. I'm going to go over some analog's later this week and make some revisions based on some of the new trends in the climate system.

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snowstormcanuck

snowstormcanuck

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:clap:

 

Congrats on the prime location. Any idea of the average snowfall for London? 

 

Used to be around 220cm...based on the new 1981-2010 numbers I think it's more like 190ish. Definitely not the snowiest of the snowy in the Lake Belts but certainly snowier than anywhere I've lived so far (Toronto, Edmonton). 

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blizzardof96

blizzardof96

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Key similarity in those analogs is an especially snowy January (except for 69-70).

Interesting. Haven't had an above normal january in a number of years. Do you know where I can find monthly snowfall numbers in the GTA running back past 1986(this is what's posted on the EC historical site)? BTW, really nice to here from you SSC!

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snowstormcanuck

snowstormcanuck

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Interesting. Haven't had an above normal january in a number of years. Do you know where I can find monthly snowfall numbers in the GTA running back past 1986(this is what's posted on the EC historical site)? BTW, really nice to here from you SSC!

 

EC site has data for Pearson going back to 1937 and U of T going back to 1841.

 

The last January that was truly above normal in Toronto was January of 2011. We haven't had a big storm in January since forever though. Last widespread 6" event was in 2004! (unless I missed something).

 

Nice to hear from you too Bliz of 96. Hope to hear more LR forecasting from yourself, Snowstorms and all the other relative experts.

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