A set of documents detailing more than two centuries of tornadoes in Canada is now available to anyone with an Internet connection.
The files were housed in the Environment Canada archives and were digitized and posted online as part of a multi-year project led by the Northern Tornado Project (NTP) at Western University in London, Ontario.
The Michael Newark Digitized Tornado Archive, officially launched last week by the research group, includes reports, photographs and news clippings about Canadian tornadoes dating back to the first recorded tornado in the country in 1792.
The archive's namesake collected much of the material in the 1970s and 1980s while working as a meteorologist for Environment Canada.
Newark, who attended the opening last week, said he began building the archive because no one else had done so before.
“I was surprised to find that there was virtually nothing, not exactly nothing, but quite a bit, almost nothing about tornadoes in the scientific literature,” he told CBC Radio. Afternoon walk on Tuesday.
Afternoon walk8:27Ontario tornado archives are now digitized
The Michael Newark Digitized Tornado Archive is a first in Canadian meteorological history. It documents tornadoes that have occurred in Ontario since the 18th century. Host Matt Allen talks with Michael Newark, the namesake of the project, to learn more about the history.
The seed of the idea was planted after Newark appeared on CBC Radio in Toronto in April 1974 to talk about a tornado that had hit Windsor, Destroying the local curling club Sand and leaving nine dead.
The tornado was one of more than 150 that would occur on both sides of the border on April 3 and 4 during the historic 1974 Super OutbreakAt least 335 people have died in 13 states and Ontario.
When asked where tornadoes occurred and how often, longtime CBC host Bruce Smith said Newark didn't have an answer.
Over a 10-year period, Newark and a few volunteers combed through libraries, old newspapers and books to identify old tornadoes and gather as much information as they could find: wind speed, path length and width, damage reports, time of year, direction of movement and more.
The result was an unprecedented database of Canadian tornadoes that has proven invaluable to researchers in the years since, including the NTP, which was founded with a similar goal of documenting every tornado that touches down in Canada.
“You can certainly see that he put his heart and soul into building this archive… with hundreds and hundreds of files that he had collected,” said David Sills, executive director of NTP.
“There's a lot of information that's not directly related to tornadoes that's interesting, too. Little side notes about how people reacted or strange types of damage.”
The documents were digitized by Environment Canada and sent to NTP, which added metadata to the files before uploading them to the Western Libraries website. So far, only the files from the Ontario events have been uploaded, but the rest will be available in the coming months.
A tornado destroyed the Windsor Curling Club and killed nine people in 1974.
Sills noted that some interesting things have already emerged from the new online archive, including never-before-seen footage that someone had filmed of the severe tornado that struck Woodstock and Waterford on Aug. 7, 1979. The twister left two people dead and caused an estimated $100 million in damage.
According to Newark's own handwritten notes, the Super 8 footage was taken by a Dr. Dafoe from the window of his home at 38 Chaucer Place in Woodstock.
Newark's tireless work has also helped inform the NTP itself. Comprehensive tornado control panelSills said. The dashboard dates back to 1980, but the plan is to include tornadoes dating back to 1792.
Newark said the release of the records will allow Canadians to better understand the risks that tornadoes pose to safety and property. The data can also be valuable for emergency planning, the development of building codes and for insurance companies in determining risk.
“You can think of nuclear power plants, disease control laboratories, hospitals, factories, all kinds of buildings like that, that benefit from knowledge of tornado incidents and the risk of them occurring,” Sills said.