Northern Tornadoes Project. Annual Report 2021

The Northern Tornado Project’s third year of detecting, assessing and documenting tornadoes and other damaging wind events across Canada saw some interesting extremes – tornadoes in parts of both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for the first time in decades, an apparent absence of tornadoes on the Prairies over the 60 days with the highest climatological frequency, a record number of significant (EF2+) tornadoes in Ontario, and massive downbursts in NE British Columbia, NW Alberta and SW Northwest Territories associated with an historic ‘heat dome’. On top of this, the COVID-19 pandemic was still spreading across the country in waves. Thankfully, it subsided enough over the summer that NTP teams were able to travel safely to various locations across the country for ground surveys. Some of the most challenging ground surveys investigated high-impact damage from the July 15th EF2 Barrie, Ontario tornado, and others significant tornadoes from that day.