Two tornadoes touch down in rare event for New Brunswick

Two tornadoes touched down in central New Brunswick during a storm Friday, an Ontario-based research group says.

Dave Sills, executive director of Western University's Northern Tornadoes Project, confirmed on Sunday that the tornadoes happened in the Harvey and Sheffield areas around 5 p.m. They are the latest tornadoes of the year on record for the province.

According to Sills, even one tornado this late in the year would be considered a rare event — for New Brunswick and the rest of Canada.

"In general, tornadoes in New Brunswick are fairly rare ... but it's the time of year that is really rare," he said.

The previous record was in 1965 when the Grand Falls area had a tornado on Sept. 21.

"This is more than a month after that," Sills said. "So this shatters the old record."

The tornadoes are currently rated EF-0, which puts them at the lowest rung on the scale for severity.

But Sills says part of his research team will be in New Brunswick on Tuesday to analyze the damage, determine the track, and decide on a final rating.

The group estimated the Harvey tornado to have wind speeds of up to 115 km/h. EF-0 tornadoes in general have wind speeds between 90 and 130 km/h, Sills said. 

Environment Canada declined to be interviewed about the tornadoes on Sunday. 

Sills said his group became aware of the Harvey tornado when they received an on-the-ground report.

"We did receive a report from a local storm spotter who was out chasing and actually saw the tornado," he said. 

"The radar suggested that the one in Harvey must have been pretty brief, but there was a longer track of rotation on the radar that we could see that was actually farther east.... This is out toward the Sheffield area."

Video footage of the tornado from someone in the Sheffield area confirmed a second tornado touched down. 

The events in New Brunswick have made for an unusually long tornado season for Canada this year, Sills said. 

"One of the trends that we expect may be occurring is a lengthening of the tornado season as climate change brings warming in general," he said. 

"The first tornado this year was March 16, and now this one on Nov. 1. That's a very long tornado season — much longer than we're used to. Usually it's something more like April to October, if that."

The storm came a day after New Brunswick broke its heat record on Halloween. 

Sills urged anyone with tornado damage to visit the Northern Tornadoes Project website and make a report.