Saturday Morning Tornado Hits Ayr

Monday, 19 August 2024 10:58

An EF1 Tornado hit Ayr on Saturday, bringing wind speeds of 165 kilometres per hour.

AYR - A tornado touched down in Ayr over the weekend, less than an hour after the supercell storm that caused it passed through Woodstock.

Environment Canada Meteorologist Geoff Coulson says the storm was in our neck of the woods at 9:50 a.m. on Saturday.

"It gave a fairly good amount of lightning and some heavy rain, but there was no damage that we're aware of. Less than an hour later, at about 10:40 a.m., the storm cell intensified further and produced a tornado that went through the Ayr region."

Coulson shares some information from the Northern Tornadoes Project out of Western University.

"They rated this as an Enhanced Fujita Scale 1 Tornado with maximum winds of 165 kilometres per hour. The length of damage was about 5.2 kilometres long and its widest point was about 230 metres wide."

Waterloo Regional Police reported significant damages to the roof of the Home Hardware in Ayr. The building had to be evacuated, but thankfully no physical injuries were reported. The North Dumfries Fire was also in to investigate the smell of natural gas on site.

Coulson says this tornado was a supercell tornado. These types of tornados are formed by supercell thunderstorms because they have a powerful updraft that rotates as it goes up into the storm. Once other factors come into play, a tornado could be formed that could have rotation spanning from the base of the cloud all of the way to the ground, causing very violent winds.

In terms of what to expect weather-wise this week, Coulson says it should be cool and quiet for the most part.

"The normal high for the area for this time of the year is about 25 and we're only looking at daytime highs between 19 and 23 for most of the week. We do start to see temperatures bouncing back to more seasonal values to finish off the work week and head into the weekend, but I think the defining characteristic of the weather in the coming days is just going to be things on the cool side but still relatively quiet. There's no real storms or showers expected for the next number of days."

NTP investigation, including a ground / drone survey, has confirmed a tornado at Ayr, ON on August 17.

The tornado caused structural and tree damage with a preliminary EF1 rating. Empty rail cars and a tractor-trailer were overturned.

Details: https://t.co/PhJ7YLx0Ca #ONstorm pic.twitter.com/8VqPUko0cS
— Northern Tornadoes Project 🇨🇦 (@westernuNTP) August 18, 2024

Significant damage in Ayr - flipped rail cars and smashed equipment. @weathernetwork #onstorm pic.twitter.com/SqHUHUf1QG
— Mark Robinson (@StormhunterTWN) August 17, 2024