Tornado database from Environment Canada archives offers new twist on storm chasing

A trove of documents detailing more than two centuries of tornado events in Canada is now available to anyone with an internet connection.

The files were housed in Environment Canada’s archives, and have been digitized and posted online as part of a multi-year project spearheaded by the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) at Western University in London, Ont.

Officially unveiled last week by the research group, The Michael Newark Digitized Tornado Archive includes reports, photographs and news clippings of Canadian tornadoes going back to the country’s first recorded twister in 1792.

The archive’s namesake collected most of the material in the 1970s and 1980s while working as a meteorologist with Environment Canada.

Newark, who was at last week’s unveiling, said he began building the archive because no one had up to that point.

“I was shocked to discover there was virtually nothing, not quite nothing, but pretty, nearly nothing about tornadoes in the scientific literature,” he told CBC Radio’s Afternoon Drive on Tuesday.

The seed for the idea was planted after Newark appeared on CBC Radio in Toronto in April 1974 to discuss a tornado that had hit Windsor, destroying the local curling club arena and leaving nine dead.

The twister was one of more than 150 that would spawn on both sides of the border on April 3 and 4 during the historic 1974 Super Outbreak. At least 335 people in 13 states and Ontario were killed.

Asked by longtime CBC host Bruce Smith where tornadoes occurred and how common they were, Newark didn’t have an answer, he said.

Over a 10-year period, Newark and some volunteers scoured libraries, old newspapers and books to identify old tornadoes and collect what information they could find — wind speed, path lengths and widths, damage reports, the time of year, the direction of movement and more.

The result was an unprecedented database of Canadian twisters that has proven valuable for researchers in the years since, including the NTP, which was founded with a similar goal of documenting every tornado that touches down in Canada.

“Certainly you can see that he poured his heart and soul into building this archive … with hundreds and hundreds of files that he had put together,” said David Sills, NTP’s executive director.

“There’s a lot of information that’s not related to the tornadoes directly in there that’s also interesting. Little side notes about how people reacted, or kinds of damage that was odd.”

The documents were digitized by Environment Canada and sent to NTP, which added metadata to the files before uploading them to the website of Western Libraries. As of now, only files for Ontario events have been uploaded, but the rest will be made available over the coming months.

Sills noted some interesting things have already come out of the new online archive, including previously unseen footage someone had filmed of the severe tornado that hit Woodstock and Waterford on Aug. 7, 1979. The tornado left two dead and cause an estimated $100 million in damage.

According to Newark’s own handwritten notes, the Super 8 film footage was taken by a Dr. Dafoe from his front window at 38 Chaucer Place in Woodstock.

Newark’s tireless work has also helped inform the NTP’s own comprehensive tornado dashboard, Sills said. The dashboard goes back to 1980, but the plan is to include tornadoes dating back to 1792.

Making the archive public will give Canadians a better awareness of the risks that tornadoes pose to safety and property, Newark said. The data can also prove valuable in emergency planning, the development of building codes, and for insurance companies in determining risk.

“One can think of nuclear plants, disease control labs, hospitals, factories, all kinds of buildings like that, which benefit from the knowledge of the incidents of tornadoes and the risk of them occurring,” Sills said.