Southern Ontario: Thunderstorm Outlook for Thursday, July 29, 2021

Forecast Discussion

An area of quite intense storms has developed over Wisconsin late Wednesday evening and the current cluster of isolated storms is expected to organize into a line with embedded thunderstorms that could bring destructive wind gusts later tonight. This complex will make its way across Michigan just after midnight and could reach Southwestern Ontario by the early morning hours.

There is some uncertainty in exactly how strong this line will be by the time it crosses into our region, but it’s possible that the environment might be strong enough to sustain a damaging wind gust risk well into the morning. One or two tornadoes can’t be ruled out although it’s questionable as the better tornado risk is will into Michigan and over Wisconsin. Small to moderate size hail could also be an issue, but unlikely to see anything too large.

Considering that many are sleeping during the time when the worst conditions are expected, it’s highly recommended that residents in the risk area have a way to receive storm updates. Be ready to seek shelter if necessary. Tornadoes at night can be particularly dangerous at night because they’re hard to see due to the lack of light.

Some localized non-severe storms are expected throughout all of Southern Ontario later in the day on Thursday. At this point, it appears that the severe risk with any of these storms is pretty low. Should remain non-severe for the most part. The storm risk will come to an end later in the evening.