Tornado touches down near Rideau Ferry
Severe storm takes out power, trees
LAURIE WEIR
It’s been confirmed by Western University’s Northern Tornadoes Project that a tornado ripped through the Lanark County area last night, July 24, near Rideau Ferry.
They also confirmed a second tornado in Brossard, Que.
Environment Canada issued a tornado warning about 8 p.m. on Wednesday, July 24, advising everyone in the area to take cover immediately.
I watched – camera in hand – the storm as it ripped through Jasper (just south of Smiths Falls) at 8:09 p.m., rain pounded off the truck in the driveway, water ran rivers across the lawn and deck. Branches swayed and bucked, and spun around but kept upright – for the most part.
I called Hydro One shortly after 8:30 p.m. as a large tree branch had snapped from the trunk and landed on the neighbour’s house. The branch was leaning on the hydro wires.
Hydro One work crews were in the area at 2 a.m. this morning, using a pole chainsaw to remove the branch from the roof of the home.
Two dead pine trees in our backyard toppled over, denting the roof of our shed.
The boys have their work cut out for them today – lots of wood for the fire pit to be cut and piled.
Hydro One is reporting outages across the area. They’ve estimated that power should be restored by late this afternoon.
Kemptville area’s Connor Mockett, a local storm chaser and weather forecaster popular on social media, said his initial thoughts for first supercell was in extreme eastern Ontario near the Quebec border — “which ended up being the Hawkesbury tornado warning early afternoon.
“Secondary storms fired to the west and moved into Ottawa, with one supercell in the western part of Ottawa near Dunrobin, and then a strong line immediately after. Essentially exactly how I thought it would play out from a storm and timing perspective,” he wrote. “However, this millionth storm this evening (millionth being an exaggeration obviously, it just felt that way) was the surprise of the day for sure. Was not at all expecting that tornado near Rideau Ferry tonight, but sometimes things are unpredictable.”
