But despite all those cautious caveats, the local scientist says something happened high in the sky over southwestern Ontario on Sunday that just might help researchers predict the type of violent winds that wreaked havoc in Leamington.

“We don’t want to say there was a definite correlation, because we’ve only seen this twice,” says Hocking, adjunct professor in 91��ɫ’s and a professor at the University of Western Ontario. “But it looks like this might be an interesting forewarner of tornadoes.”

Along with a consortium of scientists from 91��ɫ, Western and McGill universities, Hocking has set up a network of highly sensitive “wind profiler” radar stations in Ontario and Quebec.

Although researchers traditionally connect violent wind storms with the clash of warm and cool streams of air, Hocking says the Harrow instruments indicate that unstable air from the jet stream, which normally flows at an altitude of about 10 kilometres, spread uncharacteristically downwards and hit the ground.

Along with principal investigator , professor of atmospheric sciences in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Science & Engineering, Hocking has been instrumental in building five of these radar sites (including north of London, Walsingham, Wilberforce and Negro Creek), which were funded by a $2.5-million grant from the .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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