Veteran storm chaser captures video of another N.S. tornado
Chris Hill spent several decades chasing storms south of the border, including massive tornadoes in the notorious “Tornado Alley.”
Now, Hill has captured Nova Scotia’s second confirmed tornado in a month on video, this time in the Musquodoboit Valley.
It all started when he began chasing a storm system July 22.
“I noticed that at 300 millibars, the upper jet was really strong,” he explains. “Like it had been on previous days where I had seen mesocyclones. And so I knew the jet was strong.”
It’s clear Hill knows his storms – a mesocyclone is a common precursor to tornados, in which a vortex of air begins to rapidly rotate within a thunderstorm.
“I thought, nice surface warming temperatures, a lot of moist dew point…and then just a screamin’ jet that’s negatively tilted,” he adds.
“And I said, the angle of flow is (the) perfect angle for convection to put off a twisting storm, which it did.”
That’s how Hill, with his wife and his mother-in-law in the van with him, ended up following the dark, churning clouds in the area to Antrim Road.
There, he found himself right in front of a twister.
“I did not expect to come right around the corner and to suddenly see that tornado right in front of us.”
In the video, Hill quickly brings the vehicle to a halt, as the cone of rotating cloud passes through the woods and across the gravel road in front of them.
“Don’t move,” Hill says in the video, which lasts 51 seconds before the rotation disappears from view.
“I think what it was doing, it was hopscotching, where it would spin up, touch down for a bit, kind of go up and re-form, and then touch down,” he says.
To confirm what Hill saw, CTV News sent the video and photos he took to the experts at the Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University, which is tracking tornado activity in Canada.
The project’s executive director, atmospheric scientist David Sills, says the video does indeed show a twister.
“Definitely a tornado associated with what looks like a compact supercell thunderstorm,” says Sills in a Zoom interview from London, Ontario.
Sills says the tornado was likely weak, as it didn’t seem to do significant damage in the area.
Hill did look for signs of destruction near the site afterward but couldn’t find any close to the road.
“It probably did not do a lot of damage,” says Sills. “It was probably a lot more bark than bite in this case.”
Even so, it’s not what Hill expected to find after moving to Nova Scotia from the U.S. five years ago.
“I thought it would be really rare, like I would go out a dozen times in a year, maybe see one or two mesocyclones,” he says. “Let alone filming one at close range.”
It's not the province’s first tornado this year
Hill also chased a significant one on June 30 – the same one that leveled a barn in Stewiacke.
That event was confirmed as a tornado by the Northern Tornadoes Project and Environment Canada days later.
That type of event is the reason why the Northern Tornadoes Project is tracking tornado activity across the country.
“It’s been a long time since Nova Scotia has seen a tornado, let alone two tornadoes,” says Sills. “It’s just that pattern that we’re in, that the Eastern part of Canada is getting a lot of storm activity.”
For Chris Hill, that means likely more storms to chase ahead.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Average hourly wage in Canada now $34.95: StatCan
Average hourly wages among Canadian employees rose to $34.95 on a year-over-year basis in April, a 4.7 per cent increase, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.
From outer space? Sask. farmers baffled after discovering strange wreckage in field
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
This iconic Canadian song is turning 50
Andy Kim's 'Rock Me Gently' is marking a major milestone, as it celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Oprah Winfrey: I set an unrealistic standard for dieting
Oprah Winfrey said on Thursday evening that she has long played a role in promoting unhealthy and unrealistic diets.
Ontario family receives massive hospital bill as part of LTC law, refuses to pay
A southwestern Ontario woman has received an $8,400 bill from a hospital in Windsor, Ont., after she refused to put her mother in a nursing home she hated -- and she says she has no intention of paying it.
Toronto police called to Drake's Bridle Path mansion for another alleged intruder on Thursday
Toronto police say a man who allegedly attempted to access Drake’s Bridle Path property was taken to hospital on Thursday after an altercation with security guards.
Flat tire on a highway? Here's why you shouldn't try to fix it
If you're cruising down a highway and realize you have a flat tire, you may want to think twice before stopping to fix it on the side of the road.
Storm-battered U.S. South is again under threat. A boy swept into a drain fights for his life
Dangerous storms crashed over parts of the U.S. South on Thursday even as the region cleaned up from earlier severe weather that spawned tornadoes, killed at least three people, and gravely injured a boy who was swept into a storm drain as he played in a flooded street.
Broadcaster and commentator Rex Murphy dead at 77: National Post
The National Post is reporting that Rex Murphy, the pundit and columnist who hosted a national call-in radio show for decades, has died.