The jury is still out whether or not it was a tornado that touched down in Nestor Falls earlier this week.
Early Monday morning’s storm did significant damage, especially in the Caliper Lake Provincial Park, where about fifty campers were evacuated after several trees came crashing down on campers and vehicles.
The downtown core of Nestor Falls, in and around where Pine (Kakabikitchiwan) Lake flows into Lake of the Woods, and in and around the Sabaskong Bay area of Lake of the Woods, including Sabaskong Bay Road, as well as islands in this vicinity also sustained storm damage.
Fortunately, no one was injured.
Environment Canada is now reviewing the data.
Meteorologist Stephen Flisfeder says it has been difficult.
“It would have been dark at the time, so hard to get any kind of video or photos during the storm, so unfortunately, at this point there’s not much else we can do,” says Flisfeder.
“There are indicators from radar imagery that there was rotation in the storm. That’s not to say that it necessarily made its way all the way to the ground, in which case it would have been confirmed as a tornado. But the indicators are that it’s a possible tornado.”
The storm also has the attention of the Western University’s Northern Tornado Project.
“They are a group of engineers who do damage surveys. Most of the time, they use satellite imagery, prior to the storm, and then after the storm to assess any surface level damage to determine whether there’s any kind of indicators of a tornado having touched down. We’re hoping that they’ll have some insight,” says Flisfeder.
The same group is also looking into storm damage that occurred at the end of May in Alberton township.
It also confirmed tornado activity on May 30 at Boffin Lake, north of Fort Frances.
