A global leader in wind engineering and climate resiliency for 60 years, Western University is changing the way Canadians think about the country's most dangerous and damaging weather events.
Drone image of the EF4-rated tornado in Alonsa, Man. in 2018. (Northern Tornadoes Project)
Fuelled by a new, transformative $20-million investment from the university's long-established partner, ImpactWX, Western is now home to the Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory (CSSL).
"This extraordinary gift is truly one-of-kind in Canada when it comes to supporting exploration and scientific discovery and will serve as the catalyst for everything we want to do at the Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory," said Greg Kopp, ImpactWX Chair in Severe Storms Engineering and CSSL founding director. "The CSSL will greatly improve severe and extreme weather detection and documentation across the country while mitigating harm to Canadians and their properties."
The unprecedented gift furthering the study of atmospheric science in Canada will position the CSSL as the authoritative source for severe thunderstorm data and research in the country, with the goal of improving the safety and well-being of all Canadians.
"Western's track record in climate change research and natural disaster mitigation stands among the top in the world," said Western President Alan Shepard. "ImpactWX's continued investment and the launch of the CSSL will amplify our research capacity significantly. Gathering essential storm data and providing critical analysis will help inform policy and will result in real damage prevention and mitigation strategies to help people, communities and businesses right across the country."
The establishment of the CSSL also aligns Canada with severe storm researchers in the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), based in Norman, Okla., works to improve the lead time and accuracy of severe weather warnings and forecasts in the U.S., whereas the European Severe Storms Laboratory (ESSL) has the primary goal of detecting and documenting severe weather for Europe from headquarters in Weßling, Germany and Wiener Neustadt, Austria.
Powerhouse strengths remain
Under the umbrella of the CSSL, Western engineering researchers will continue the successful national tornado and hail investigative initiatives of the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) and the Northern Hail Project (NHP).
Led by executive director David Sills, the NTP has completely shifted the understanding of tornadoes in Canada since its launch in 2017. Sills joined Western from Environment and Climate Change Canada, thanks in large part to an initial gift from ImpactWX, and has managed critical investigations of Canada's most severe storms over the last eight years, including the Ottawa-area tornado outbreak in 2018, the high-impact derecho event that greatly affected the Windsor-Quebec City corridor in 2022 and the EF4-rated tornadoes in Alonsa, Man. in 2018 and Didsbury, Alta. in 2023.
Drone image of the EF4-rated tornado in Didsbury, Alta. in 2023. (Northern Tornadoes Project)
NTP will build on this groundbreaking work with the first-ever national downburst and derecho datasets by 2026.
"The Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory represents a new era in severe thunderstorm research in Canada. At Western, we have a lot of experience and expertise studying severe storms and now it's time to take it to the next level," said Sills. "This translates to a far better knowledge of risk and impacts in Canada, and the ability to impart that knowledge to decision makers and the general public. I'm excited for the future."
A key NHP initiative is to issue a damaging hail occurrence climatology (the long-term average over 30 years) within the next two years.
"The NHP is leading a renaissance in hail research in Canada and bringing hail research into the 21st century," said Julian Brimelow, NHP executive director. "These new national climatologies are a key research objective of the CSSL and will contribute significantly to our understanding of severe weather phenomena."
The NHP is also leveraging information from hail collected during their annual field projects, like investigating Calgary's 2024 hailstorm that caused nearly $3 billion in insured losses, to improve radar algorithms for detecting hail and estimating hail size. These algorithms can then be used to develop a radar-based hail climatology for Canada.
Greg Kopp, ImpactWX Chair in Severe Storms Engineering and CSSL founding director, and NTP executive director David Sills (Tyler Gray)
Improve safety and damage mitigation
The Northern Mesonet Project (NMP), which will be led by director Connell Miller, a wind impacts researcher with NTP since 2018 is an important new program under the CSSL umbrella. A mesonet is a regional network of automated weather and environmental monitoring stations designed to observe meteorological phenomena, like damaging winds, hailstorms and extreme rainfall. New algorithms will also be developed for the automated detection of severe and extreme weather using data from these stations.
"Using new techniques and technologies as well as experimental testbeds, NMP will increase the value and impact of publicly available surface weather observations by creating a central online platform for all existing mesonets," said Miller. "We'll have a national network of networks' all working together towards making Canada a safer place to live, work and study."
Beyond NMP and the continued efforts of NTP and NHP, CSSL has a number of other key initiatives planned for the next 10 years, including the launch of a new flash flood program. A Western team studied the Greater Toronto Area flash flood in 2024, which provided an excellent opportunity for field investigators and student interns to train in a new area of severe storm research. This past summer, NTP also investigated the Jasper National Park wildfire, which may have spawned a rare fire tornado.
Researchers in the U.S. and Western are building on the latest advancements in tornado science to establish an updated Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale standard, one the CSSL will implement in Canada when complete. The EF scale is used to measure the intensity of damage, with zero being the least severe and five being the most severe.
The CSSL will also leverage data from forensic-level hail-damage surveys to develop a universal hail damage scale. The CSSL will also develop national risk models for hail damage.
Sustained excellence, partnership and support
Beyond the new $20-million investment, ImpactWX has long supported Western's research in this area with previous gifts totalling more than $10 million that have greatly influenced and shaped how tornadoes, downbursts and hailstorms in Canada are tracked, recorded and scientifically examined. The support has also provided an immersive incubator experience for students and interns to become the next generation of wind engineers and severe storm scientists.
"The time is now to accelerate game-changing research in the climate space with the establishment of the Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory. The CSSL will empower Canadians to better understand and prepare for increasingly devastating extreme weather events and build our resiliency," said Travis Farncombe, ImpactWX founder.
"The commitment by Western to be a leader in this crucial field will continue to move the needle, and we at ImpactWX are incredibly proud to support the dedicated and talented team there. We're excited to see what's to come."
- Travis Farncombe, ImpactWX founder
World leaders converge
Leaders from both the NSSL and the ESSL, as well as meteorologists, engineers and storm impact scientists from around the world, are meeting in London, Ont. this week to mark the launch of the CSSL with a one-day research symposium at Western on Oct. 29.
CSSL offices and labs are located in the Amit Chakma Engineering Building and will move to the newly constructed Western Engineering Building, planned for completion in 2026.
