Hello folks, well last week's heatwave is now a distant memory, but what a memory! As Graeme posted, Hamilton recorded 36c last Thursday with Dundas own weather station reading 37c, the magic 100f! The power did stay on for me at least which is all credit to Hydro One, their power lines didn't even stay up further west from here on Saturday night, but i'll come to that in a second.
Officially a heatwave, we had 6 consecutive days of +30c in the City of Hamilton area, by my reckoning also Humidex alert status stayed in place for 9 days across the region with the high value recorded of 48 last Thursday, a record for Hamilton/Dundas and 37c for Dundas was also a local record as far as i'm aware. The Hamilton Spectator reported on Thursday also that July 21st 2011 was officially the warmest ever recorded morning temperature for the Hamilton area of 26c.
The heatwave broke gradually at first with slightly lower temps on Friday before a major storm front, the same one that washed out O'Hare airport moved in from the west on Saturday night bringing a few hours of torrential rain, thunder and lightning for most of the Golden Horseshoe and also further west outside Sarnia near Watford, Ont. a confirmed EF2 Tornado as reported here :
Environment Canada has confirmed an f2 tornado touched down in
Lambton County of Southwestern Ontario Saturday evening July 23rd
2011. The damage track is one half km wide and 11 km long extending
from 7 to 8 km southeast of Wyoming Ontario to 10 to 12 km south of
Watford Ontario. The damage observed along this path included a barn
destroyed and several steel hydro towers down. This is consistent
with the strength of an f2 tornado with wind speeds in the 180 to
230 km/h range.
No death or injuries were reported in association with this tornado.
And also the report from today's Spec.com - http://www.thespec.com/news/ontario/article/569393--weekend-tornado-near-sarnia-rated-f-2. Pretty significant event that in itself, a while since anything more than an F0 or F1 tornado was reported in Southern Ontario, fortunately with no injuries due to the rural location.
Following this cold front, much cooler. 25c/77f currently in Downtown Hamilton with lots more cloud and much less humid also, if anything better conditions all round. Outlook for the rest of the week remains more unsettled but still fairly warm with temps in the mid-high 20c range.
As for the Jays, i thought i actually made for a better game Graeme played indoors in those unique conditions! And the win made it all the more memorable. It's still a 51-51 season for them, maybe steady rather than spectacular progress for this changed Jays line-up.
Take Care