Storm tracker group confirms rare tornado touchdown on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast

When Lynn Smith set out for a routine trip from her home in Halfmoon Bay to Sechelt on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast on Monday, she turned on her camera to send a video to a cousin who lives in the United States.

Smith “jokingly started recording” to show her relative the “beautiful day” she was having with pouring rain and strong winds, stormy weather that seems normal for where she lives.

“We have a generator for that very reason,” Smith noted.

When she got onto the road though, Smith said trees started coming down “like dominoes” in the high winds and she knew something wasn’t right.

“Then I’m in a moment, I’m thinking this is tornado-like,” she said. “And little did I know it was in fact a tornado.”

Western University’s Northern Tornadoes Project, which tracks storm damage events across Canada, confirmed that what Smith captured on video during the windstorms that hit much of the B.C. coast was a tornado, with wind speeds of 115 km/h.

The footage from her car shows winds whipping up forest debris as a tree falls across the road and she gasps in disbelief.

“My husband was born and raised on the coast,” she said. “He’s never seen anything like this and we’ve got neighbours that have been in the Halfmoon Bay area all their lives and they said they’ve never seen anything like this.”

Smith said she was worried someone was injured and called 911 when she turned around, flashing her lights at oncoming traffic to warn them of the downed trees.

Northern Tornadoes Project executive director David Sills said the team is still awaiting satellite imagery data on the tornado event.

Sills said when he first saw the footage of Monday’s storm in B.C., he thought it was just showing damage from a large storm.

“But then it was clear that there was rotation associated with the damage that was being caused,” he said. “So, we looked into it further, we collected some other videos that have been taken and managed to identify a narrow path of damage and so we classified it as a tornado.”

Sills said it ranked the lowest on the scale measuring tornado strength, but the team will get a more precise reading on size and strength when it gets the satellite information.

The Sechelt tornado is only the second recorded by the project in B.C. this year, after one that occurred over Mabel Lake in the B.C. Interior in August.

“This one seemed to be associated with a thunderstorm that came roaring through from the northwest, that’s a bit unusual, especially this time of year,” he said, referring to the Sunshine Coast twister.

“There have been other events in November in that area with tornadoes and even later than this one, so while tornadoes are rare out there, it’s not as unheard of as some people might think.”

Sills said 2022 saw 129 tornadoes in Canada, the most in one year, but that number dropped down to 86 in 2023, “a big fire year” with lots of smoke that may have had an impact.

He said there have been 109 tornadoes recorded in Canada this year, and the country has seen an average of 101 tornadoes annually since 2017.

BC Hydro spokeswoman Mora Scott said Monday’s windstorm was a “very significant event,” knocking out power to approximately 290,000 customers.

Scott said there were lots of downed trees and debris on roads, especially on the Sunshine Coast, where crews had to clear debris before tackling the task of restoring power.

She said Monday’s storm is the fourth most damaging storm event in the last decade.

After Smith put her camera down, more trees fell “like toothpicks” as she made her getaway. She said she returned home to no power and her home generator isn’t hooked up to the garage door.

Smith was in her garage up a 10-foot-ladder dealing with the door and fell, injuring her foot. An ambulance made it to her, but then it couldn’t get through to the hospital because of fallen trees.

The storm tried to get her twice, she joked.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press