When Robert Kuhn, a severe weather meteorologist with Environment Canada, arrived at work Sunday evening, he looked back at the day’s weather data and saw nothing that would indicate an impending tornado.
“It wasn’t a classic environment,” he said. It was warm but not too hot, and the wind was “nothing to write home about.” Looking at the data, he might have thought strong thunderstorms, possibly approaching severe, and maybe some hail. “But I don’t have any indication at this point where – oh, I’ve got to go to a tornado warning or tornado watch now and see what happens.”
When dd and I were texting after the warning, we were both in sunshine. I could see dark clouds, she couldn't see any more clouds than we had all day. There were no warnings or watches from the weather service (I'm not saying no tornado warning, I'm saying NO weather warnings at all, even for strong thunder storms, just the daily, you might get a thunder storm warning and I had already heard thunder a few hours before.)
You have to remember we aren't getting a lot of sun here. Saturday was supposed to be sunny but the first sunshine we got all weekend happened when the thunderstorms formed (it was as if they gathered all the overcast into solid clouds.) So many people were out walking or biking when the tornado hit.
There was little if any rain involved. Only winds out of nowhere.
To add insult to injury, Ottawa never received an emergency alert. The alert went out on the basis of tiny Gatineau Airport (the city across the river of Ottawa) spotting the tornado from their tower. They called it in to Environment Canada but by the time the alert went out, the tornado was long gone and causing havoc south of Ottawa. I know the alert was for Gatineau even though the wording says "in the mobile coverage area" because the wording is in French first, then English. Warnings for Ottawa are English first, then French.
I've been complaining all year that forecasters can't predict the weather even 3 hours in advance now. I've literally stopped listening to the weather person on the radio because the information is useless. But this useless information is coming from our government weather forecaster not some air-headed 'weather reporter'.
So with absolutely no accurate weather reporting, leaving home on foot even when it is sunny, is now a very dangerous activity.
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