Photo of what appears to be a funnel cloud near Thamesford taken on April 11, 2017. Picture courtesy of Jennifer Waldron.

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A storm that ripped the roof off a barn, and downed trees and power lines near Thamesford earlier this month has been confirmed as Ontario’s first tornado of the year.

Environment Canada has released the findings of its investigation into the April 11 storm that rolled through the area northeast of London. The storm spawned a downburst and a tornado that lasted roughly ten minutes.

“In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that strong,” said Peter Kimbell, a warning preparedness meteorologist at Environment Canada. “We concluded that the winds would have been as high as 150 km/h, very locally. So that would place it in an EF-1 category on a scale of zero to five. It wasn’t that big but never the less it caused some scattered damage and was noteworthy.”

With the help of a team of investigators from Western University who were deployed to the scene, the weather agency determined that the tornado’s path was approximately 11 km long and 200 m wide.

The confirmation signals an early start to the tornado season, said Kimbell.

“Typically tornadoes don’t begin until May in Ontario. The season really begins in May and goes through until the end of September, sometimes even October,” said Kimbell. “This was definitely early and would be the first tornado that we reported this year in Ontario and probably Canada.”

Last year, 11 tornadoes were confirmed to have touched down throughout Ontario. The first of which was observed on March 16 when an EF-1 touched down in Clifford. On average, Ontario sees 12 twisters a year, while across the country there are usually between 60 to 80.

However, Kimbell expects to start seeing that average rise in the coming years.

“We are far more aware of when they occur now than we ever use to be,” said Kimbell. “The number we use as an average spans many years prior to the advent of social media and cellphone cameras, so the real number, the real average would be a lot higher.”

The photos below were taken by and provided by Harry Schut of FotoSchut Photography.