Canada experienced its longest tornado season on record, according to the annual year-long investigation by Western University's Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP).
The country's first confirmed tornado in 2024 hit Malden Centre, Ont. on March 16, and the last logged tornado occurred near Fergus, Ont. on November 10, making the season 240 days in total over nine different months. An average tornado season in Canada occurs over six different months, from approximately the middle of April through the middle of September.
The Malden Centre tornado on March 16 tied the record for the earliest ever in Ontario, matching one that hit Clifford, Ont. on the same day in 2016.
"It's the longest tornado season on record since at least 1980, according to our records," said David Sills, NTP executive director. "The length of the 2024 season is yet another invaluable data point that will impact how we investigate - and ultimately understand - severe convective storms in Canada."
Second highest number of tornadoes in a season
During the record-breaking 2024 season, NTP verified 129 tornadoes across Canada - the second highest documented by the team in a single season. The Canadian record is 131 tornadoes in a year, set in 2022.
NTP researchers are constantly analyzing and updating severe weather data from across the country, meaning more tornadoes and downbursts may be discovered over time. Last year, preliminary data showed there were 86 tornadoes in Canada, but that number increased to 90 after a year of further investigation.
The record was initially set in 2022 with 129 tornadoes, but upon further review, the total climbed to 131, establishing a new benchmark for Canada.
Fuelled by a new, transformative $20-million investment from the university's long-established partner, ImpactWX, Western is now home to the Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory (CSSL). Under the umbrella of the CSSL, Western engineering researchers are continuing the work of NTP, the Northern Hail Project and the newly formed Northern Mesonet Project.
"The unique and substantial investment in the CSSL by ImpactWX means sustainable funding for the NTP for another decade, ensuring we can continue collecting high-quality tornado, derecho and downburst data and create critical datasets and climatologies into the future," said Sills.
An NTP ground and drone survey was completed on June 4, 2024 near Edberg, Alta., documenting reported home damage and additional crop and tree damage. Damage was assessed as an EF0 tornado, with an estimated maximum wind speed of 130 km/h, track length of 2.67 km and maximum path width of 160m. (Areez Habib / Northern Tornadoes Project)
Ontario hit hardest
Ontario recorded the most tornadoes over land - 50 events in 2024 - with an additional 10 tornadoes recorded entirely over water, a split that's consistent with results from 2020 to 2023. Quebec was the second most active province in 2024 with 21 tornadoes, four of those occurring over water.
Beyond the severe weather event information posted to its open data dashboard, NTP released complete findings from its 2024 investigations in an annual report.
Now in their sixth year of national operations, NTP engineers and scientists conducted more than 500 severe storm event investigations last year, including 79 ground surveys and 74 drone surveys. NTP also completed 470 satellite-based wind damage investigations and manually scanned satellite images of Canada's forested areas covering 3.23 million square kilometres.
David Sills
While there were no EF4- or EF3-rated tornadoes in 2024, there were 12 EF2-rated tornadoes recorded by NTP last year, doubling the total of six in 2023. The higher EF rating demarcates a higher level of severity for a tornado event.
"There were twice as many tornadoes rated EF2 or higher across Canada this year versus last year, but that's still far less than the 30-plus that were recorded in 2021 and 2022," said Sills.
Founded in 2017 at Western's Faculty of Engineering with initial support from ImpactWX, NTP is a team of engineers, faculty, staff and students aiming to better detect tornado occurrences throughout Canada, improve severe and extreme weather prediction, mitigate against harm to people and property and investigate future implications of climate change.
