Our first real good thunderstorm of the year really hit us suddenly and hard.
There really wasn't that much total rain (11.0 mm) but when it came down starting at 4:30 pm it was painful for those of us unlucky enough to be stranded outside. It wasn't hail but it felt like little rocks being thrown at me and I saw a recycling bin going down Bridgeport at about 50 km/h, if you are missing one it is probably in Guelph by now.
The temperature went from 20.5 °C to 15.6 °C in the fifteen minutes between 4:30 pm and 4:45 pm. That's not an all-time record (it dropped 5.7 degrees back on June 8th, 2007) but it could likely be the fastest drop we see this year.
After taking shelter on the main floor of the parking garage on King I watched as some of the construction fencing from the new public square blew onto King Street. This caused a bit of traffic mess before me and hot dog vendor guy pulled the debris to the side of the road.
Anybody else got stories from the storm?
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Yep. Good stuff. Power out for a couple of hours. Saw what looked like a plastic patio chair aloft about at 20 metres AGL. An Air Bus seemed to take off from CYKF after the storm. Wondering if it was a diverted flight?
Watched the storm from my patio door, glad I wasn't outside :)
Our neighbours patio umbrella went for a small flight, and some of the construction fencing on campus likewise was blown down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFQ4Q-HZZPw
Sounded like a freight train over at King and William, I thought a tornado was coming... though I was playing games and didn't stop.
We were just leaving the new Walmart in north Waterloo/St. Jacob's when it hit. There's a construction site across the street, and the storm turned into a practical white/brown-out as it picked up dirt and blew it sideways. It had the feel of tornado conditions, and it wouldn't shock me if there are reports of a twister or two.
A very strong storm. We live a little west of St. Clements. We had several tree tops snap off and a large healthy beautiful tree snap off about 6 feet from the ground. The main damage was in a line running west to east. We were looking in a different direction at the time the storm arrived. It would have been dangerous to have been outside. Debris was flying.
As I was driving north on Highway 6 from Hamilton around 5 pm, the sky over Guelph was turning black and there seemed to be a greenish tinge. The wind was strong enough that it was hard to keep control of the car and it began raining heavily, so I took refuge in the Chinese restaurant in Morriston. After about an hour (and a good meal), the worst part of the storm passed and the rest of the trip was easy-going. I saw no damage through Guelph and Maryhill, but when I got to Bridgeport Road, it was evident that KW got hit fairly hard.
We were on the golf course of all places. It seems every time we try to golf at Merry-Hill, we get a storm. We were on that same course last year when we got that massive dump of rain in July. Yesterday, we were at a spot furthest from the clubhouse, having had a tee time around 4 pm. It was pretty windy and wet getting back to the clubhouse. We were soaked by the time we got there. Even today, my clothes still felt as if they had just come out of the washer! At home in Baden, our fence was blown apart, and the neighbour's kiddie playground is tipped and busted up.
We were in Corunna about 5km south of Sarnia. We got into the basement as trees started falling.
The town alert siren was blaring almost non-stop after the storm due to 911 calls about car accidents in the storm.
There is major damage in the Lambton County area in a swath from Mooretown-Sarnia eastward to Strathroy. The 402 was closed for hours after the storm.
Our good friends in Reeses Corners near Wyoming in Lambton County had major roof damage. They got into the basement once siding started peeling off their hour.
We have a report in the office today of what sounds like a funnel cloud touching ground near St-Jacobs, ON.
Located: Hawkesville Rd. near Township Road 21.
Massive amounts of debris, funnel cloud.
We actually got some hail down in Kitchener. Not very much but it was hailing (along with rain) for under a minute or so.
I forgot to check out what the wind speed was at the time of the storm. Is there any way to have access to that info again?
Richard, is Environment Canada investigating the St. Jacobs tornado report?
Here is what Environment Canada says about the damage seen in Breslau (don't know about St. Jacobs)
http://www.570news.com/news/local/more.jsp?content=20090427_143321_7916&page=1
About the wind speed, unfortunately we only measure the average wind speed so the maximum of 25 km/h during the storm doesn't make any headlines.
By the way, you can see every reading we have ever taken at the weather station on the archive page.
We drove out to Hawkesville/Twnsp Rd 21 and we couldn't find anything. Just a few downed trees branches here and there.
I fear that this line in the 570 News blurb--
"Senior Climatologist Dave Phillips tells 570's Jeff Allan Show that the difference [between a downburst and a tornado] is in the damage"
--might reinforce some people's confusion, or ignorance. It isn't that the difference is in the damage; it's that you can tell the difference by what the damage looks like.
I was outside in Toronto when the squall line came through. I wasn't at all concerned about a tornado, but for a few seconds I wondered if I was going to be flattened by a microburst. Just some impressive straight-line winds as it turned out.
I got nailed by this classic squall line near Ottawa and River Road in Kitchener while on the way to get some pizza for supper. Excellent shelf cloud visible as the squall line approached (I call this the "line in the sky"). Winds estimated at 85 km/h picked up all sorts of sand and twigs and about 2 minutes later torrential rains reduced visibility to less than 100 metres at River Road and Lorraine. Saw quite a few folks getting soaked. There were a couple trees knocked over in the Stanley Park conservation area and another tree knocked on a fence on Champlain Cresent. There also appeared to be some tree limbs down near Highway 8/401 but I'm not sure if these were from this storm.
Peak winds at Waterloo International Airport were 78 gusting to 102 km/h at about 4.33 PM with about 9.5 mm from this storm. Summer severe weather season has arrived!
My wedding was April 25 at 5:00. The storm hit just as everyone was arriving at the venue, and we were without power at the venue for about two hours. Fortunately we had lots of candles and they cooked the dinner with gas, but it was an interesting evening that's for sure!
A good storm indeed! Was driving east on Bridgeport just before the parkway, and a tree had blown down over the road just before I got there, branches everywhere. I was driving with the gust front for a bit- quite windy! The trees really swayed. I pulled off the parkway and went onto Ottawa street to take some pictures of the storm, and it was definitely hailing where I was for a minute or two, and raining SUPER hard.
We were on the 11th floor of the Keats Way apartment and saw some poor biker knoecked off their bike on Keats way. Two minutes later, we saw flashing lights, as a two automobiles rear ended when the visibility dropped to nil.
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