Yes, I finally get to write about a local storm 🙂 June 8th was a very hot and humid day, the Humidex read 49 celcius (Thats what it felt like. 120 Farenheit) it was hot, sticky and nobody wanted to move, I almost died trying to tidy my house. At about 3:30pm the first line of storms came through the Kawartha lakes area. The front was very strong but very brief. My neighbours insist they saw a Twister but were unsure if it touched down. I was walking home with my Daughter and the clouds came in very fast. There were rotations in the clouds and the cloud formation showed that there were up and down drafts in the system. Not more than a minute of me sitting at my office desk the wind picked up, I saw parts of my daughter’s play house fly by and that was good enough for me to run to my basement. The sky was VERY dark. The wind lasted about 20 seconds. It does look as if a small twister may have touched down 2 doors down because their large shed was tipped over and branches were down but I guess we’ll never know if an actual twister hit.
Above is a picture of Radar from the first set of Thunder storms. I didn’t get a pic of the second line of storms because the power was out.
After the wind had picked up furniture and blew it all over the place, it became calm and I snapped the abve pic. The clouds were rotating but no funel seemed to come down.
All was well and I didn’t expect any more big storms for the rest of the evening. It got sunny by 5:30 so My daughter and I headed to our Church to the Kid’s group. I volunteer to help run Wednesday Night Kid’s Group. We were having a movie night and the power started to flicker on and off. Within 10 minutes the second storm was among us. The power went out for good at around 7:30 so we got all of the kids in a circle and started to play Hot Potato and Duck Duck Goose while we waited for parents to come pick their children up. Because I’m obsessed with the weather I looked outside and saw a few funels spining in the clouds, then the wind started and the rain came pouring down. It was very dark, there was lots of lightning and the storm just kept going on.
A few of the kids were really scared because the power was out and it was pretty fierce out there. My Daughter was sitting at the window with Excitement going “Oooh and Ahhh” at the lightning. I guess that’s just what Mommy and Daddy have taught her, both Nick and I go “Oooh and Ahhhh” when it comes to lightning. It was amazing lightning, very colourful. I wish I had my camera. By 8:30 I got home so we lit some candles, had Burgers for dinner and just waited.
Above is a picture of the evening sky after the storm.
Turns out the storms caused 144 000 customers to be without power all over Ontario. Power is still being restored to 50 000. We got ours back at 1pm. Hydro One is working on multiple downed lines and poles all over Ontario. They estimate there are 300 downed power lines. Some areas may be without power for a few days. Lucky for us our neighbour had a generator and we got to plug our fridge in so our food would not spoil in the heat. There are only a few downed trees in Norwood Ontario but in many places in Ontario there are reports of much larger damage. Some places got hail, some had uprootes trees and Environment Canada is assessing damages to see if possible tornadoes touched down.
Well the power is back on here in Norwood. It came on right before I was about to attempt to boild water on the BBQ so I could make pasta. Glad I can use the stove. I did feel like a survivalist for a few hours. The streets of Norwood were also abandoned when I went for a walk at noon. Only 3 businesses are open, everyone has signs on their door. Now it’s back to business and hopefully power will be restored to the other 50 000 customers soon.
Above: One of the trees down across from my house. Not caused by lightning, it looks as if the tree was rotting inside so it was weak. The limb split and the tree fell.
goslindisasters 