For a while now, during my free time I've been working on mapping out some Super Outbreak tornadoes (but that's a topic for another post) and something I informally call 'The Worldwide Tornado Documentation Project' - with a simple goal, to dig up and shed light on as many international tornadoes as possible. While there are multiple weather services around the world that keep a good tab on their tornadoes including the Japan Meteorological Agency, South African Weather Service, Trinidad and Tobago Weather Center and Italian Meteorological Service, some countries don't have the resources to properly maintain a functioning weather service - and thus many tornadoes get lost in the void unless they are documented by an international organization or photographed/filmed by an individual.
Regardless, I've managed to track down tornadoes in over 110 countries, including some exceptional occurrences:
- Tornadoes that hit Ishango, Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2007 and Tumbaco, Ecuador in 2014 occurred approximately 9 and 15 miles south of the equator, respectively.
- Tornadoes have occurred as far north as southern Iceland, northern Norway, the Bering Sea in Alaska and the Northwest Territories in Canada; these occurrences (along with previously mentioned tornadoes in La Rinconada, Peru) make me firmly believe that waterspouts/weak tornadoes are absolutely possible in southern Greenland, although it's one of the few places in the world where a tornado has yet to be documented.
- The southernmost tornadoes I know of occurred in Ashburton, New Zealand and Puerto Montt, Chile; both towns have been hit at least twice.
Some notable events I've come across recently:
- A probable tornado struck Akim Oda, Ghana on May 5, 1968. Masonry homes had their roofs ripped off and some had exterior walls partially collapsed. (source)
- Guyana started keeping tabs on its tornadoes not too long ago, officially recording its first funnel cloud on August 16, 2019 and its first tornado on October 13, 2021. Another tornado was recorded in Black Bush Poulder on May 22, 2022. It's probable that earlier tornado events have gone unreported, nonetheless it's still great to see more countries attempting to keep track of their tornadoes. One possible example of such is a pair of twin waterspouts recorded on August 23, 2011, reportedly in Guyana (although other sources say the video is from the Bahamas, calling this into question).
- A tornado in Oman in May 2021 (source) and a 2014 tornado in Goyang-si, South Korea (source) are some rare examples of tornadoes outside of North America and Japan being observed with radar imagery.
- A funnel cloud and possible brief tornado formed in the northern part of San Salvador (and on the slopes of the nearby volcano of the same name) on August 20, 2013. (source)
There's many more to cover, including some in detail but I'll save those for follow up posts. On a somewhat related note, the way a lot of international news outlets classify tornadoes remains a pet-peeve of mine:
