Large, damaging F2 tornado hits resort areas, destroys orchards, homes, challets
The F2 tornado at Blue Mountains, Ontario. Touching down at 4:40pm with a path that was 12km long and 400m wide, the tornado moved from south of Thornbury to the northeast. Trees and power poles were snapped, apple orchards were ravaged, houses and chalets had their roofs torn off, and at Georgian Peaks Ski Resort, storage buildings and lift houses were demolished. The tornado’s path which took it over the crest of the Blue Mountains was particularly unique, and made for an unbelievable sight as stunned residents watched it tear through.
Several witnesses captured photos and videos of the tornado which was fast-moving, large and barrel-shaped. As it approached the ridge of the the Blue Mountains themselves, it was a dark and churning mass that sporadically exhibited a multiple vortex structure. Cresting the ridge, it briefly became a wedge, then tapered again into a fat stovepipe as it descended the slope. As the tornado moved out over the waters of Georgian Bay, it became ghostly white as it sucked up ring of spray from the water’s surface. Video shows violent motion at this stage of the tornado’s lifecycle, however the tornado moved away from land and out over the vast expanse of the bay, dissipating before reaching the distant shore.
This was one of nineteen tornadoes that struck Southern and Central Ontario on August 20. The others:
- deadly and destructive F2 that struck Durham
- F1 at Arnstein
- F1 that tracked between New Lowell and Edenvale
- F1 at Newmarket
- damaging F2 in the Woodbridge neighbourhood of Vaughan
- F0 at Moonstone
- damaging F2 tornado in the Maple neighbourhood of Vaughan
- F0 at Dollars Lake
- F1 that struck Gravenhurst
- F1 at Milton
- F0 near North Bay
- F1 near Haliburton
- F0 at Redstone Lake
- F1 at Ril Lake
- F0 at Orono
- F1 at Rice Lake
- F1 that tracked from Bancroft to Carlow Mayo
- F1 at Buckshot Lake
