MONTREAL — On July 24, Environment Canada issued a tornado warning for the area around Lachute, Que., northwest of Montreal, urging people to take shelter.
The warning was accurate: a tornado touched down outside Lachute about an hour after the alert. But three other twisters that day slipped past forecasters.
When a suspected tornado strikes, researchers with the group head into the field to investigate and share their findings with the federal government. David Sills, executive director with the tornado project, says Environment Canada has recently improved its tornado alerting program, but he says the agency should be issuing more warnings — even if officials aren't always accurate.
The federal government uses a variety of special alerts to inform the public about tornadoes. The most urgent are Alert Ready messages, which are sent directly to cellphones and disrupt television and radio broadcasts. Alert Ready messages are automatically triggered for a tornado or severe thunderstorm with winds greater than 130 kilometres per hour or when at least 7 centimetres of hail is forecast.
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