Red tornado alerts were announced for multiple communities near London on Thursday afternoon and evening as a severe thunderstorm swept through southwestern Ontario, bringing heavy rain and high winds.
As of 7:50 p. m., all tornado alerts had been canceled for the London and Chatham-Kent areas, but thunderstorms continued to move through the region.
One alert, issued just after 7 p. m. for Chatham-Kent, Rondeau Park, and western Elgin County, noted that the “tornado location” was over Moraviantown, heading east at 40 km/h. The warning for Elgin County was the second one issued for that area in less than an hour.
No tornado has been confirmed by Environment Canada or Western University’s Northern Tornadoes Project.
Environment Canada weather advisories and warnings as of 8 p. m. on June 25, 2026. Solid yellow areas are severe thunderstorm warnings, while translucent yellow areas are severe thunderstorm watches. (Environment Canada)
Previous tornado alerts, issued around 6:40 p. m. for parts of western Elgin County, including Rodney and Shedden, and around 6 p. m. for western Middlesex County, including Strathroy, were lifted before 7 p. m.
Those alerts mentioned a “tornado location” over Glencoe moving east at 40 km/h and then over John E. Pearce Provincial Park moving east at 25 km/h.
“I was noticing a weird parting in the clouds, so I watched it for a minute and then my heart kind of stopped because I realized that it was actually coming down,” said Glencoe-area resident Amanda Vanderkuyl.
“All of a sudden, I could literally see the wall of water coming out. You can hear it over the trees from the house, so it was kind of cool and a little bit scary to watch,” she said. “Then, it blew in like a freight train.”
Vanderkuyl said she estimates the weather event lasted about 10 minutes. Aside from some plants getting blown over, she reported no damage to her property.
Still, Vanderkuyl noted that this storm felt different compared to recent weather events in the area.
“We get side-swiped with storms a lot but it doesn’t usually come straight over,” she remarked. “I felt like I could’ve touched it.”
Tornado alerts were also active earlier in Sarnia and eastern Lambton County covering Lambton Shores, Grand Bend, Pinery Provincial Park, and Watford until they were lifted around 6 p. m.
Most of southwestern Ontario remained under a severe thunderstorm watch as of 8 p. m., with some regions still facing severe thunderstorm warnings.
If threatening weather approaches you should take cover in a basement or an interior room according to the weather statement’s advice. Anyone outdoors should protect themselves from flying debris and hail while securing any loose objects nearby.
Local utility outages were also possible according to Environment Canada due to wind gusts reaching up to 90 km/h along with potential hail size comparable to toonies.
Earlier in the day Environment Canada meteorologist Peter Kimbell indicated that how serious the storm would be depended partly on how much sun shone across the region throughout the afternoon.
Tornado risk initially considered low
Kimbell explained when we spoke that even though some atmospheric conditions were favorable for tornadoes today’s risk was very low.
“It’s not like in some situations we have (wind) shears being very high which would increase tornado likelihood-that’s not what’s happening today.”
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