Goderich Tornado - Still Cleaning Up

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Might be a little old by now but it has been exactly one month since an F3 tornado struck the community of Goderich, Ontario.

The tornado was born out of a supercell thunderstorm which formed right on the nose of the 850mb low level jet. It took most of us who watch weather in the province by surprise, surface winds were out of the SE at about 15 - 20 knots but upper level support was marginal at best with weak westerlies aloft. I had chased another storm earlier in the day which could not get it’s act together, the slow forward motion of the storms meant their outflow kept undercutting the inflow base.

The storm which struck Goderich received substantial local shear from an inter-lake breeze convergence boundary (locally SRH on the order 500 m2 / s2) and several prior outflow boundaries which coupled with the jet nose forcing, induced updraft speeds on the order of 50 - 60 m/s (approx 200km/h). As a result the perfect setup for a classic supercell was born. As a quick note, radar estimated SRH just moments prior to the tornado between the wall cloud and RFD was on the order of 1200 m2/s2… now that’s what I call shear!

A couple radar images showing the hook echo at 3:50PM are visible just before the town is struck.

The images of the damage and aftermath are visible at this link http://www.vaughanweather.com/wxlist/goderich_tornado/ & my Flickr gallery with over 300 photos is here Goderich F3 Tornado Damage | Flickr

After you have a look at the above images take a look at some news links below showing how the cleanup has progressed. It’s sad to see some homes had to be completely torn down but the re-build is well on its way.

http://swo.ctv.ca/gallery/html/goderich_tornado_one_month_20110921/gallery_.html

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=goderich_picks_up_the_pieces_210911?ref=ccbox_news_topstories

F3 tornadoes are not by any means rare in Southern Ontario but it has been a little while since we had one and they usually don’t hit large towns. So this is certainly a bit of an unusual event in that regards. Another stranger factor is that the storm may not have been totally surface based (at least initially), 5 discrete cells of comparable size moved through an hour earlier drowning the area with outflow and there was virtually no recovery period in terms of sunshine and surface heating. Usually when that happens it is game over, so to see a storm plow through an outflow filled area, produce a major tornado and keep going is pretty amazing.

Tom

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really shocking to have something of that significance hit Goderich. I’m in southern ontario too… we felt it, but not like that! Glad all is well.

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Definitely a shock and a surprise!

The town won’t be the same, it will take another 80+ years for all the trees alone to grow back. The church and buildings can be restored, but all those 100 year old trees will be gone for a while.

It’s sad that someone lost their life, the crane operator at the salt mine never saw it coming being wrapped in rain and all. By the time the wind picked up he had no time to get to safety before the crane toppled over.

In 2009 the Vaughan tornado (F2, borderline F3) missed my house by about 500 meters! It was a scare since I was not home and my mother was on the phone describing the debris falling from the sky LOL!

Jeff, are you on the WX Ontario mailing list? If not, you should consider joining, a bunch of mets from Environment Canada, spotters, chasers, hobbyists and daily report observers are on the list. I will PM you directly with details if interested.

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thanks for the detailed info, sure looks bad, especialy for that far north!

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Thanks for looking.

I know it does snow here but we’re not THAT far north LOL :wink:. Actually we get about 15 - 20 tornadoes a year, and those are only the ones that are reported.

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