A powerful tornado hit a rural area south of Didsbury, Alberta on Canada’s Birthday, July 1st with numerous witnesses documenting the event through photos, video and personal accounts.
The Northern Tornadoes Project, in collaboration with the ECCC Prairie and Arctic Storm Prediction Centre, conducted a thorough ground and drone survey, with one NTP team documenting damage the evening of the event and two NTP teams working together the next day.
The survey teams found that there was enough evidence to rate the tornado damage at EF4, with a maximum wind speed of 275 km/h. The preliminary path length is 15.3 km and maximum path width 620 m.
Twelve residences were hit by the tornado: 3 were destroyed, 4 were left uninhabitable, and a further 5 were damaged.
Thankfully, due in part to timely weather alerts, there was only one minor injury.
The Didsbury EF4 tornado enters some rarefied territory among Canadian tornado events.
It is the strongest recorded tornado in Alberta since the Edmonton F4 tornado of 1987 and one of only three tornadoes rated F/EF4 in Alberta (the other hit the Grassy Lake area in 1915).
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