Province’s first tornado of 2023 touches down an hour from Waterloo Region

Tornado season in Ontario has officially begun, with the first twister in this province confirmed Wednesday evening.

Waterloo Region had two special weather advisories on Tuesday and Wednesday from Environment Canada warning that conditions were favourable for the development of funnel clouds.

Although nothing materialized here, Talbotville did see a tornado touch down which was investigated by The Northern Tornadoes Project, a team of faculty and students at Western University.

Using their drone, they were able to determine that the EF0 tornado, the lowest level on the enhanced Fujita scale, carved a path 2440 metres long and 40 metres wide at some points and had wind speeds exceeding 100 km/h.

The twister damaged a restaurant in the village, as well as some nearby fields.

The team also used their drone to investigate funnel clouds spotted in Beachville, but found no damage or evidence of a tornado.

There were no injuries in either incident.