CORNWALL – Cleanup continues this morning (Thursday) after a brief but intense thunderstorm rolled through Cornwall Wednesday night causing widespread damage.
The thunderstorm hit around 7:20 p.m. with whipping, swirling winds and lashing rain.
The force of the wind peeled a large section of metal siding off the Axalta Coating Systems building (formerly Valspar) at Second Street West and Haulage Road.
Three blocks east, a large tree landed on a car on Jenna Crescent, crumpling part of it and blowing out the back window.
Cornwall firefighters and Cornwall Electric were called to a couple of downed trees involving power lines on Second Street West, across from the cenotaph, and Notre Dame Street, north of Thirteenth Street West.
The city’s parks department was out last night cleaning up some of the debris and more work will continue today.
There were trees also down on Sydney Street and Alice Street.
Cornwall Parks Supervisor Scott Porter says the damage appeared to be consistent with a microburst. That still has to be confirmed by Environment Canada.
Environment Canada meteorologist Gerald Chang told Cornwall Newswatch Thursday morning that they had received no damage reports. “Your information will be quite important to us,” he said. The weather service receives damage reports through Twitter with the hashtag #onstorm or by email to onstorm@canada.ca
“Presumably it would be a downburst. We were thinking that it was possible that those storms would be capable of producing gusts of 100 kilometers per hour yesterday (Wednesday) in Eastern Ontario so that would be consistent,” Chang said.
The area had been under a severe thunderstorm watch.
