Rare Tornado in Vancouver on Saturday, November 6, 2021

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A very rare occurrence happened this past Saturday when an EF0 tornado caused some minor damage in the Vancouver area. Tornadoes are rare enough in British Columbia but especially in November!

Environment Canada tweeted about a meso-low at 5:07 pm.

Video and photos were captured of a tornado over the Strait of Georgia that came ashore and caused damage to the University of British Columbia.

This video was taken at the UBC Golf Club as the tornado came through. Note the tree falling (0:07) and the blue flash (0:10) as power lines go down.

ECCC issued a Tornado Watch at 5:30pm.

In the video below of the aftermath of the Tornado at UBC you can see tree limbs and tree damage as well as damage to at least one car at the very end of the video.

Power outages were also noted in this tweet and prompted the discussion of the possibility that the tornado may have crossed the Burrard Inlet.

ECCC Weather British Columbia issued this tweet.

It is confirmed that an EF0 tornado occured at 5:10 pm PDT at UBC near University Golf Club (estimated wind speed 90-110 km/h). Damage includes broken trees/tree limbs, scattered tree debris, uprooted trees, downed power lines, and tree damage to vehicle.

Tornadoes are rare in British Columbia but they do occur. Prior to yesterday there were three tornados reported recently in BC:

  • EF0 in Mission on September 16, 2018

  • EF0 in Saanich on May 21, 2020

  • EF0 in Fort St. John on August 21, 2020

There have also been reports of non-supercell tornadoes over water in the Strait of Georgia. Three concurrent ones on June 9, 2021 and two concurrent ones on June 10, 2021.

Tornadoes in Vancouver or the surrounding area are very rare. The last confirmed tornado in Vancouver was in 1976 and in the area of Vancouver in 1991 (Pitt Meadows):

So grateful that no one was hurt and here's hoping this remains a rare occurrence.

Fireball Lights Up the Early Morning Sky in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia

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This article was last updated on February 25.

Did you see the fireball this morning? Capture it on video? If you did you can send in a report to the International Meteor Organization (IMO) or American Meteor Society (AMS). Below is a video that was submitted to the AMS by Marie.

This video has been uploaded on the American Meteor Society Website. AMS Event: 978-2021, Report 222919 (978ag-2021) - Edmonton CA\nMore info here: AMS Event...

From the following NASA Meteor Watch’s post, the meteor occurred at 6:23 AM (2021 February 22) and was first visible above Skeleton Lake and moved south of west before ablating above Perryvale:

Bright fireball seen over Alberta early this morning (2021 February 22 @ 6:23 AM) There have been over 150 reports of...

Posted by NASA Meteor Watch on Monday, February 22, 2021

Weather satellites that monitor lightning also imaged this meteor because it was so bright:

The Alberta fireball was also imaged from space... It was bright enough to be detected by the Geostationary Lightning Mappers onboard the GOES 16 and 17 weather satellites.

Posted by NASA Meteor Watch on Monday, February 22, 2021

Here is the current map showing the locations of the observers from the event page on the International Meteor Organization website.

AlbertaMeteor.png

There has been enough data to estimate the size, mass and orbit of some recent bright meteors. We will update this article if more information about the meteor becomes available.

Update February 23: There are now 7 videos of the meteor can be found at the IMO event page. Including this one from Mieszko in Edmonton.

Bright streak (maybe a comet or a meteor) over Edmonton, Alberta on February 22, 2021

Update February 24: AMS has received over 100 videos and 400 reports for this meteor. They produced this fantastic video with music (hint turn on the sound) featuring some of the videos that they received.

More info here: http://www.amsmeteors.org/2021/02/bright-fireball-over-alberta-canada-on-february-22-2021/

Update February 25: University of Alberta researchers were able to calculate the orbit of the meteor. Due to the speed and the orbit they have concluded that the meteor was a fragment of a comet about the size of a grapefruit up to basketball. More details can be found here.