Rob Bean was enjoying a nap after dinner on his farm northwest of Moose Jaw, Sask. last month when thunder woke him up.
Looking out the window, he saw a tornado of earth pass by. Twister was eventually rated EF-0 – the lowest possible tornado force rating – but Been found it strange that he did not receive any warning of the impending storm until long after it disappeared.
“If it can show up anywhere, you’d like to have some notice, not 45 minutes later,” Been said.
WATCH Tornado warnings in Canada do not meet the targets:
A recent analysis of tornadoes and tornado warnings in Canada from 2019 to 2021 from the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) at West University in London, Ont., Shows that Been’s experience is not uncommon.
In what it calls a “report card” for the presentation of tornado warnings, the NTP assesses the environment and climate change Canada (ECCC), the federal agency responsible for issuing weather warnings, in three categories.
The first focuses on what proportion of all tornadoes from 2019 to 2021 there was a tornado warning. The ECCC’s target is 50 percent, but the NTP found that only 26 percent received warnings.
The number rises to 28 percent when only tornadoes occurring in the ECCC range are considered, and 38 percent when only tornadoes with an EF-2 rating and higher are considered.
Environment and Climate Change The Canadian warning system came under scrutiny after a tornado struck Bari, Ont., In July 2021. Residents complained on social media that they had received a warning about the twister after it had passed. (Grant Linton / CBC)
The second category noted the ECCC’s performance to achieve its goal of issuing a warning at least 10 minutes before a tornado landed, 60 percent of the time. NTP found that this happened in only 9.5% of cases. It has risen to 12.5 percent when considering only tornadoes with an EF-2 rating and higher.
The last category assesses how often a tornado clock precedes a tornado warning in cases of an actual tornado landing. The ECCC’s target for a watch released six hours before the touchdown was 80 percent of the time eased to one hour by the NTP, but still resulted in a success rate of just 12.1 percent.
In total, the ECCC scored 37.5 out of 100 points on the NTP chart.
NTP offers recommendations
NTP CEO David Sils called the data “quite surprising.” He said looking south of the border at the US National Weather Service could improve warning statistics in Canada, as the likelihood of finding a tornado there is quite high.
“There’s an entry forecast team for every radar in the United States,” Sils said. “Given that there are only a few offices (ECCC) across Canada.”
David Sils, executive director of the Northern Tornadoes project at Western University in London, Ontario, says more staff are needed at Canada’s ECCC forecasting centers to better monitor tornado storms. (Zoom)
In addition to training and improving forecasting tools, Sils said the number of tornado warnings, ECCC-related problems, needs to be increased, even if the tornado doesn’t finally touch.
“If you do not issue tornado warnings for storms that you think may be tornadoes, you will never receive a statistical blow to the forecast,” he said.
Sils said this was NTP’s first assessment of a tornado warning, but planned to do more in the future.
Improvements have been made, more to come, says the ECCC
Joan St. Coeur, director of the Canadian Meteorological Service – Department of Environmental Weather and Climate Change, Canada – said the ECCC has taken steps to warn the public about tornado storms, such as creating its own application for time and work to upgrade all 33 of its radar sites.
She said the comparison with US data was a bit unfair, given Canada’s sparse population and the fact that many tornadoes here are much weaker.
“We are a country more prone to severe weather conditions in the winter than in the summer months,” Saint-Coeur said.
St-Coeur said the ECCC is looking for ways to detect tornadoes in areas without radar coverage and plans to change the way tornado warnings are issued to cover smaller, more specific areas.
“There is always room for improvement,” she said.
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