Tornado time machine: Researchers revisit 2010 Essex County twisters

A group of researchers want to take a look back at the 2010 tornadoes in Essex County that caused power outages and created an estimated $100 million in damage.

The Northern Tornadoes Project, based at Western University, is looking to speak with anyone who has photos, videos or information about the tornadoes that hit from Amherstburg to Kingsville.

The researchers are not looking for more details on the Leamington twister, which was well-documented, but will be studying it as part of this process as well.

"We do look at different cases in a new light sometimes, especially when they have really interesting data," Dave Sills executive director of the Northern Tornadoes Project, told CBC Radio's Windsor Morning host Amy Dodge.

The string of damaging tornadoes tore through southern Essex County at 3 a.m. on June 6, 2010. There were four tornadoes documented.

Sills says he wants to revisit the tornadoes because of an inconsistency in the data: A weather station near Harrow that was hit recorded one wind gust over 190 km/h, which turned out not to be in any of the previously documented tornado paths. 

"So that really piqued my interest and I went down the wormhole," he said.

Sills said there's also more data out there from radar, satellites and social media videos that may not have been looked at before.

And the expertise on tornadoes in Canada has grown in that time as well, after seven storm seasons with the Northern Tornadoes Project, Sills said.

This series of tornadoes was part of a much larger event that also hit parts of the U.S., Sills said, and as the group looks to build its database to track trends, it's important to make sure the analysis is accurate.

"Getting that kind of significant event right in our database is really critical." he said.

Anyone with photos, stories, video or other information can get in touch via email [email protected].