A newly established research centre in London, Ont. promises to revolutionize the tracking and understanding of dangerous weather and its impacts.
Western University launched the Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory (CSSL) Monday, and officials hope it will be the country’s leading authority on data and research related to severe weather, including thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail and flash flooding.
The creation of the CSSL comes thanks to a $20 million donation from ImpactWX, a social impact fund based in Toronto.
“What we’re trying to do is get a really rigorous set of data for what actually happens when severe storms occur. We want to document everything, and see patterns,” said Greg Kopp, the founding director of the CSSL.
The end goal is to use that data to allow engineers, politicians and emergency planners to make informed decisions that could save lives and money down the line, Kopp said.
The laboratory, while new, isn’t being created from scratch. It’s bringing two already established and successful projects under its umbrella. The Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) and the Nothern Hail Project (NHP), which conduct studies and documentation into tornadoes and hailstorms across Canada, will continue their work as part of the CSSL.
On top of the continuation of already established projects, a new one, the Northern Mesonet Project, will be created to track and centralize weather monitoring stations, which are known as mesonets. The online platform will connect the country’s monitoring stations into a larger network and make meteorological data accessible.
Another plan for the future includes the creation of a new flash flood program to keep track of and study floods resulting from extreme rainfall, like the one that devastated the GTA in July 2024.
The creation of CSSL marks a huge step forward in what started as a relatively small project in 2017, Kopp said.
“When we started the Northern Tornadoes project, we were working with the donor to find something that we thought was really important, but that no granting agencies would fund, and we built it from there,” he said. “That’s part of why this is astounding, because we didn’t think people would fund this kind of work at especially at this kind of level.”
Kopp said the $20 million donation, which is expected to keep the lab running for ten years with a team of professors, staff, students and more, is unprecedented in Canada for a project of this type.
“I honestly never dreamed that we would be able to do something like this, so to me it’s just kind of a miracle.”
To David Sills, the NTP’s director, the CSSL’s establishment marks a natural progression in the project’s goal from the very beginning.
“We’ve made quite an impact with the tornado side already, as far as providing data, analysis and letting the public and decision makers know about the real tornado climatology of Canada. Now, the idea is to move to having information on anything that has to do with severe thunderstorms in Canada,” he said.
With climate change causing changes in weather in almost every region in Canada, Sills said the work has never been more important.
“What we want to see is a better awareness of severe weather risk and better resilience in the community, but also building codes and policies that are in line with the data,” Sills said.
The lab’s creation also sets London up as a powerhouse for climate and weather research, Sills said, adding that’s apparent from an international severe storms conference he attended recently in the United States.
“London is suddenly on the lips of a lot of researchers,” he said
