Normally I would be out mobile when severe weather threatens, in order to get a better look. On this particular day, I happened to look out my window, and saw the sky was an eerie greenish colour.
Heading outside, a saw a boiling column to the north reaching from what appeared to be the ground to the cloud ceiling. At first the vertical speed made me think it was smoke from a fire. It soon became apparent that I had a rotating wall cloud a few blocks to the north. Houses and trees blocked my view of the bottom.
I grabbed cameras and headed out for a better look.
It turned out that it wasn’t on the ground, but was only a couple hundred feet up. The width was impressive – almost 500 meters across at one point.
This is some of the video I took July 18, 2007. We did not end up having a funnel cloud, but it sure looked imminent. Environment Canada had a tornado warning issued.
Chatham-Kent – Rondeau Park
4:50 PM EDT Wednesday 18 July 2007
Tornado warning for
Chatham-Kent – Rondeau Park continuedAt 4:35 P.M. an Environment Canada Canwarn weather spotter has noticed that a severe thunderstorm is showing signs of rotation near Wallaceburg. If a tornado does form it will most likely be brief and weak.
This is a warning that severe thunderstorms with tornadoes are imminent or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions. Take immediate safety precautions.
Scattered thunderstorms will develop this afternoon and into the evening as a disturbance across central Michigan extends southeastward towards southwestern Ontario. There is a possibility that some of these thunderstorms may reach severe limits especially along lake breezes from Lake St Clair and Lake Erie. Main threats with these severe thunderstorms are large hail and damaging wind gusts. There is also a slight chance that a thunderstorm may produce a tornado when it interacts with a lake breeze but these types of tornadoes will generally be brief and weak in nature.