Weekend tornado confirmed over Greater Sudbury lake

A northern Ontario amateur videographer has captured some footage of extreme weather in the Greater Sudbury community of Azilda on Saturday.

Chantal Denis Leduc recorded two short videos of a water spout form over Whitewater Lake at about 4:30 p.m. Watch the videos above to see.

The Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) at Western University has looked at the video Leduc posted and confirmed it was a tornado.

"An NTP investigation has concluded that a tornado (over water) occurred with a thunderstorm near Sudbury, Ont., on Aug. 12," NTP said in their findings Monday.

"The tornado was reported as a waterspout over Whitewater Lake at Azilda, Ont., and no damage was reported. The event was therefore assigned a default EF0 rating."

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Officials with the tornadoes project said the radar images show a relatively weak velocity couplet – adding the storm developed rapidly over the area and was relatively brief.

A radar image of Azilda at 4:23 p.m. on Aug. 12/23 showing reflectivity and radial velocity data. (Image provided by Northern Tornadoes Project)

"Note that a spray vortex caught on video… was determined to be caused by a gustnado rather than a tornado," NTP said in a tweet.

Leduc shared the video on provincial storm reporting Facebook page and it has been shared and viewed hundreds of time.

She said she was not sure it was a water spout when she first posted the video, but was thankful for the confirmation from the group.

"Thanks… I wasn’t sure," said Leduc in the comments of her post.

This summer has seen its share of dramatic weather events in the north and across Canada – including some nickel sized hail on Manitoulin Island last month.

Click the video link above to watch a short compilation of the videos Leduc shared with CTVNewsNorthernOntario.ca.