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Kim Bowes was sitting on her covered deck admiring the view of the Pollett River near Petitcodiac, New Brunswick Friday evening, when she noticed an eerie silence. Minutes later, that silence was broken by an unusual, loud sound as trees started swaying and a dark cloud directly in front of her house developed what appeared to be a dark tail.
“As I’m videoing it, I’m like oh dear God, I think this is a tornado.”
Bowes’s daughter and son-in-law urged her to come inside, and as the rain and wind moved closer, Bowes said it was hard to know what to do.
“Everything happened so fast. I had so many things going through my brain. Like, it was like, OK, we’re going to lose power, we’re going to lose the roof. We got to get, you know, everybody out of the house.”
Her thoughts turned to her granddaughter sleeping in bed, but just as the winds slapped into her home, and started moving her patio furniture around, the storm pivoted and moved off in the other direction.
One tree on their property came down, but other than that, there was no major damage.
The Northern Tornadoes Project confirmed a tornado occurred and has issued a preliminary classification of EF0. (Northern Tornadoes Project/Facebook)
The Northern Tornadoes Project, based out of Western University in London, ON, posted on social media to say it confirmed a tornado occurred in southern New Brunswick Friday near Petitcodiac. It said “a preliminary rating of EF0 has been assigned. More details will be made available after further investigation.” A rating of EF0 indicates gusts between 105 and 135 kilometres per hour.
Jim Tirone, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada said Saturday that the agency is aware of reports about the weather event. But it’s too early to confirm whether it was a tornado. He said no lightning was reported in the area, but there were strong winds, and heavy, fast-moving downpours. He said they will investigate further on Monday and that could include sending a team to the area.
As for Bowes, she and her family stayed up late Friday reliving the scary experience.
“I’m nervous now. I think I’m nervous and it just solidifies that anything can happen, it doesn’t matter where you are geographically in the world.”