MB/MN: F3 Tornado, 70-Year Storm

NOTE: This is an update to an earlier blog entry.

CTV reports today that the tornado that struck Gull Lake in Manitoba, Canada last week was the worst tornado in seventy years, and that it caused one death and 10 injuries. They have some additional photos of the damage. Gull Lake has been declared a disaster area.

And down in Minnesota, USAToday reports that the National Weather Service is calling the tornado that struck Warroad was an F3 on the Fujita Scale with a track length of 19 miles and a width of 1/2 mile (impressive), though the actual report indicated that there were probably 3 or 4 tornadoes making the 19-mile track.

MAP FRUSTRATION AND CORRECTION: Apparently the link that I provided the other day to Gull Lake, Manitoba via Live.com Local, was wrong, and I apologize. Before the city names were released (see below), finding out where exactly this tornado occurred on a map has been a bit frustrating. I guess there several Gull Lakes in and around Manitoba. Google Maps was unable to find the term until I went into Winnepeg on the map and searched again, then it found two. Trying the same thing over at Live.com, it also found nearly 10 of them. The problem is, only one hit from Live.com was near the actual locations that were hit: Petersfield or Stead, which were (finally) quoted in the CTV article:

Furthermore, the Live.com site shows that one location as "Gull Lake" when zoomed way out, but not when zoomed in, in fact it doesn't show the lake on the map at all; you have to switch to aerial to see it. To be fair, Google did not show the lake on their map either (and never labeled it). Finally, I have found the lake! This proves my theory that Internet mapping services are still unable to find locations which are not listed in a zipcode database. Perhaps this will improve in the future.

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