Did a tornado actually hit part of the Greater Toronto Area?

Phones, TVs, and radios blasted emergency alerts to residents in parts of the Greater Toronto Area over the weekend.

Western areas of the GTA, including Milton, Oakville, and Mississauga, were placed under a tornado warning on Saturday as a severe storm moved through the area.

Residents were told to take “immediate cover” in a basement or interior room if severe weather approached.

But did a tornado actually occur?

Some images circulated online after the storm claiming to show a tornado in the GTA.

INsauga.com reached out to Western University’s Northern Tornadoes Project, which researches and confirms severe weather events in Canada.

David Sills, the director of the Northern Tornadoes Project, said they have been monitoring for reports of a tornado and damage in Oakville and Milton.

All they have come up with, however, is two suspected photos.

One claiming to show a tornado over Milton was AI-generated, Sills said.

Another one claiming to show a tornado over Oakville “is harder to pin down,” he said, but is likely not real.

“The location and timing do not match up with the radar imagery we’ve analyzed, and the photo does look manipulated in some way,” Sills said.

He said they are “fairly certain that no tornado occurred.”

“However, the radar sequence indicates that a tornado warning was certainly warranted,” Sills said.

“Just lucky a tornado did not develop.”

Environment Canada issues tornado warnings when a thunderstorm is producing or is likely to produce a tornado.

Certain things like rotation on a weather radar can indicate if a storm is or is likely to produce a tornado.