What Will Happen When A Tornado Hits Winnipeg?

As you know Winnipeg is a very structured and unique city, that we live in. So many good qualities and cultures thrive here. Although given our geographic location it puts us on the northern fringe of tornado alley, with on average of 13 tornadoes a year in the province. We barely get as much as what the Plain States receives, they pick up as much as 1,000 tornadoes a year, however our summer severe weather can be just as bad as what happens in the plains, under the right conditions.  In past history we have had tornadoes strike several towns including Portage La Prairie, Altona, Brandon, St.Adolphe, St.Claude, Brunkild, Pipestone, Turtle Mountain and Elie. Don't forget Winnipeg has had 9 confirmed tornadoes since records began in 1872. I will talk about the Portage La Prairie and Elie Tornado because they are the most memorable events in Manitoba's history. With a interesting scenario on Winnipeg's next tornado. With information from Brock Holowachuk, Impact a history of disasters in Manitoba.

On the night of June 23,1922 a strong progressive derecho thunderstorm line marched across the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba producing damage and several tornadoes that caused damage to several towns and communities. The first report was around midnight in Bradenbury Saskatchewan, it swung southeast through Regina before it headed east for Manitoba. It struck Virden and Brandon at 12:40am, but the greatest of its energy didn't start building up until just west of Portage La Prairie (within the MacGregor area). The 10,000 residents of Portage La Prairie awoke at 2am to a distant roar with the sky to the west bright with lightning. Five minutes later hail pelted roofs with the force of axe blows and windows, walls, and roofs were destroyed. Trees and telephone poles were pulled out of the ground or snapped into pieces, making streets impossible to drive through. Automobiles were picked up and thrown about in the streets, the Kloss family home was lifted cleanly from its foundation and moved 25 yards away with the family and 2 guests inside. The family was ok but the guests were knocked unconscious.  After 30 minutes the most severe part of storm passed through town and moved east likely losing tornadic capabilities, although strong winds continued for two hours. Daylight revealed that not a single house in the community had been spared, some homes were completely levelled. Streets were littered with debris and the main business strip was in ruins. Crops were badly damaged outside of town. In one case the Merchants hotel was torn off the building and carried one block east before it settled in front of the post office. One hundred percent of crops were damaged just east in Elm Creek and Carman, alongside more destroyed homes. The storm arrived in Winnipeg at 3:30am even in the darkness it was clear the storm had fury with winds in excess of 135km/h the same strength as in Portage La Prairie, though not tornadic. It still had fury as wind, rain and hail tore apart the city. The most severe damage in Winnipeg was around Logan Avenue, Minto Street, Mcphillips Street, and Notre Dame Avenue. Also the roof at Sapton Creek Church in Hazelridge was lifted one hundred feet away, forty percent of crops in the Tyndall area were lost. The storm weakened as it moved east toward lake Winnipeg, where hail was the size of pennies, compared to the hen egg sized hail in Winnipeg. Power was out for most of the city for a few days, and work crews were sent to Portage La Prairie to help repair the damage. All in all severe weather is a huge occurrence in summer, though this is a sharp contrast to what happened in Elie on June 22,2007.

 

On the day of June 22,2007 I remember it being hot, humid, sticky and very tropical like. I was in Grade 6 at the time, just starting Middle School. I came home at the end of the day and came to watching the news and The Weather network on tornado watches  province that were happening, I also remember watching live updates from John Sauder on CBC. Turns out a tornado was happening I never got to see the tornado, but I did know something big was going on that day by the way the weather appeared here in Winnipeg.

 

 

Elie Tornado Track

A frontal boundary was in place the whole day  The atmosphere was primed the whole day for severe weather it just couldn't develop because there was a cap in place (a warm layer of air at the middle levels of the atmosphere) that inhibited storm development. The frontal boundary that was in place the whole day in the interlakes finally had enough lift in the atmosphere to overcome the cap, when it did a thunderstorm cell developed just west of Winnipeg along the trans Canada highway. As it tapped into the low level inflow it became a super cell and produced its first tornado, the super cell sat over the same area for quite a long time, forming in the field right next to the trans Canada. It then travelled southeast and hit the flour mill looped around it once and towards town before looping back north hitting four homes and lifting one completely off its foundation before exploding next to the flour mill. A few moments later the tornado picked up a Chrysler fifth avenue and dropped it a hundred feet away. It decided to loop southwest before it died off. The tornado, In a quite a popular area too, right along the trans Canada. The amount of storm chasers was quite outstanding. Justin Hobson's Story on the event can be found here.

http://aweathermoment.com/post/25644517259/5-years-ago-today-a-personal-recount-of-the-elie

 

   Things would have been much worse if this tornado travelled into Winnipeg, or worse if the storm had of initiated 45km west and became tornadic as it did in Elie. Winnipeg is due for another tornado, this time it might be as bad as Edmonton's July 31,1987 tornado. I'm going to debunk the myth that tornadoes cant hit cities they can its just that cities are hit less often given there smaller land mass, compared to the areas of farmland.https://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060810205824AAcQ68v  It's only a matter of time before a tornado strikes Winnipeg given our situation with severe summer weather events, Im saying it as a fact since we live in the middle of tornado alley. So what will happen?

 

First we will need these ingredients:

M- Moisture ( Humidex as high as 30C needed, ideally 40C or more)

I-Instability (CAPE of 3,000 J/Kg or more, no capping.)

S-Shear ( enough shear to produce and maintain tornadoes)

T- Trigger we need some kind of frontal feature cold front, warm front, trough, lake breeze to create lift in order for storms to develop. The most likely feature to set off a tornado would be any frontal boundary.

  

On a hot and muggy summer afternoon (in June or July) some kind of frontal boundary enters the province and encounters the warm humid airmass which spawns several severe thunderstorms, the conditions quickly deteriorate with tornado warnings being issued for various regions of the southern half of the province. In our scenario a supercell thunderstorm develops somewhere around Winnipeg likely to our west, south, southwest or northwest near the city, moving towards the city at a decent pace. The storm becomes tornado warned with large hail as big as golf balls, with flooding rains and produces several funnel clouds before touching down into one single funnel, the tornado continues to grow in size as it approaches the city. It arrives at the worst time "rush hour traffic", with roads and highways packed with traffic it will be difficult to get out of harms way. Let's hope it happens on a weekend. Once it enters the city it will become unstoppable. When it reaches the perimeter highway it will cause people to flee from there vehicles and hide for safety. Once it tears through the suburbs of either charleswood or crestview it pickups houses like ragdolls, uphends cars and uproots trees. As it heads for Linden Woods or Downtown the tornado grows in size making everything a complete disaster. Glass would break, street lights, cars and anything in it's path would be obliterated in minutes. As the worst of the storm passes through either St.Vital or Downtown, the tornado slowly but surely loses its steam. It still barrels towards the CN Rail yard and picks up and tosses the trains and throw them into  the air, landing hundreds of feet away. Once it exits the rail yards the east perimeter highway better watch out, as it throws cars semi trailers into the air, traffic will be at a standstill. Once it gets into the Ste Anne RM it will slowly rope out. The cost of the destruction could be tallied at 4 billion dollars, with power out for most of the city, along with flooding and hail damage,. Over 1,000 would be injured and 100s dead if not more. The worst hit areas east Saint James or Charleswood towards downtown and Fort Garry and out the southeast end of the city. At the tornadoes widest of 2 kilometres is where most of the destruction would take place. The tornado would likely be rated an F4 or F5 It would take a full year to recover from the damage caused by the storm. Although it is very rare for tornadoes that big to occur here, it is still not out of the question. It's not matter of if it's gonna happen, but when. As the city expands and becomes a larger target, it only takes one storm. Are you prepared for when severe weather hits?http://www.gov.mb.ca/severeweather/

Please Share your thoughts and opinions below, I would really enjoy some feedback. Maybe I'll even join in!