A summer storm drifted through Thunder Bay on Canada Day, downing trees and knocking out power for some residents.

However, Environment Canada says they did not record any tornadoes or funnel clouds.

“Our thinking so far has been that this was likely a downburst that caused this damage, as opposed to a tornado,” explained Environment Canada Meteorologist Crawford Luke. “Downbursts are something we see quite a lot of throughout Ontario in the summer months. They’re the most frequent cause of wind damage from thunderstorms across Ontario. “

According to Environment Canada, downbursts and tornadoes are both types of damaging or threatening winds.

“I like to think of tornadoes as kind of sucking things in like so sucking things in sucking things up, a downburst is kind of the opposite,” explained Luke. “It’s basically a strong downdraft in a thunderstorm. It races to the ground.”

“The pocket of air that races to the ground once it hits the ground, it kind of goes splat, like the bug on a windshield. And so you have the winds coming out in all directions, and that’s basically what we saw in Thunder Bay on Canada Day.

Wind speeds were not recorded in the hardest hit areas on Thunder Bay’s south side and Fort William First Nation, but the weather stations around the airport recorded winds above 90 km/hr.