Environment Canada has confirmed that damage sustained during Wednesday night's storm in Windsor and LaSalle was caused by two tornadoes.
Geoff Coulson, a warning preparedness meteorologist with the weather agency, says the first tornado that touched down in LaSalle has been confirmed on the Enhanced Fujita scale as an EF-1 tornado, with peak winds ranging from 135 km/h to 175 km/h.
The second tornado that impacted parts of the Windsor area has been rated as an EF-2, with 200 km/h to 220 km/h peak winds. The worst of the damage occurred in the area of the E.C. Row Expy. and Central Ave., the weather agency says.
"This would be the first EF-2 tornado for the season this year, in Ontario," says Coulson. "The last EF-2 event would have been last summer, August 19, 2015 [in the Kapuskasing area]."
He says the maximum width of damage for the tornado that hit LaSalle is between 250 m to 300 m wide, while the length has of the tornado track has been recorded at 2 km. The maximum width of damage in Windsor was up to around 200 m., and the length of the track was 8 km.
"The storm cell that was over the Detroit River, just west of LaSalle spawned that first EF-1 tornado." says Coulson. "There was a gap of about 4 km to 5 km between the end of the track of the LaSalle tornado and the start of the track of the tornado in the Windsor area."
In LaSalle, the winds blew the roofs off two homes on Victory St., while in Windsor, 15 homes suffered damage on Riberdy Rd.
This marks the sixth and seventh tornado that Environment Canada has confirmed this year in Ontario. An average of 12 tornadoes are recorded each year in Ontario.