Rick Barnum was just two cabinet shelves short of completing an 18-month renovation on his Midhurst home when Thursday’s storm hit, literally.
He was alone in the house and watched from the garage as the wind became violent then brought with it some hail.
“I just heard the bang,” he explained as crews worked on his property Friday. “This big old 100-plus-year-old tree decided to carve a hole in the top of my roof.”
Those living in the area near Gill Road describe increasing wind which brought a deluge of rain creating rushing streams through the area followed by hail which accumulated on the ground and could still be seen in wooded areas on Friday.
Far from upset, Barnum is thankful there were no injuries. He’s also happy he has the support of neighbours, who came around to offer help.
He spent the night with a friend and was waiting for an engineer’s assessment to determine the next steps. But with a tree in his master bedroom and water damage throughout, he’ll likely be hunkering down elsewhere for a while.
“We’re privileged to live in a little community like this where everybody comes right over immediately and wants to help out,” he said.
Almost straight south, alongside Highway 27, the Leons had a clear line of sight to a cloud formation at the end of their street, between their home and Barnum’s. The cloud developed at the end of the street, forming a shelf which started to rotate. It then disappeared north over the treeline.
They then watched the sky go grey and very dark before the rain and hail fell. Water then overwhelmed the ditches and flooded the side of the road cascading over driveways and large branches and some trees came crashing down, damaging only some fencing.
“We’ve been here since 1999 and it’s the most intense storm we’ve ever experienced,” said Peter Leon, adding that they lost power for several hours during the evening.
“The tornado warnings from Environment Canada were helpful because it was before that, so it did give you time,” added Sue Leon.
Thursday’s storm whipped a fury over Central and Southern Ontario late Thursday.
While the system appeared on the brink of developing supercells, with some areas of rotation, there have been no tornadoes documented so far, the Northern Tornado Project reports.
But Environment and Climate Change Canada did issue tornado warnings based on radar in the Georgian Bay area - one for Owen Sound at 4:49 p.m., one in Barrie at 4:57 p.m. and another for Orillia at 6:03 p.m.
The bulk of the most severe weather and resulting damage occurred in Sarnia, where there were wind gusts of 117 km/hr including downbursts, said Gerald Cheng, meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
A line coming from Michigan brought a cold front into Ontario which was accompanied by hail in some areas as well as rain. Cheng said some pockets received a deluge.
In Phelpston, 37 mm of rain was reported with 38 mm of rain falling in Anten Mills. Meanwhile the Barrie-Oro station recorded 19 mm of rain between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.
“This is thunderstorm season, so we expected this,” said Cheng. “We do see days of severe weather, severe thunderstorms and severe thunderstorms can produce damaging winds.”
