An early wake up call for Windsor-Essex residents.
Cell phones blasted the emergency alert tone early Thursday morning, warning of a possible tornado.
The city was not affected by the tornadic storm cell that picked up strength in the Harrow area.
Speaking to AM800's Mornings with Mike and Meg, Environment Canada Severe Weather Meteorologist Mitch Meredith, says a severe thunderstorm warning was issued at 12:03 a.m., and upgraded to a tornado warning at 12:32 a.m.
"A strong thunderstorm developed right over the Harrow area, initially there was a severe thunderstorm warning, there was lots of lightning on the storm, and the storm started getting bigger, stronger, and it started doing some rotation," Meredith said.
Meredith says the storm cells had all the right formula to produce a tornado.
"Lightning did track from Harrow all the way to just north of Leamington, and just north of Wheatley, and then it petered out on the shoreline just before Rondeau, so it was a long track storm, those are sometimes dangerous, and what we saw on radar anyway's had the potential to drop a tornado," he said.
Meredith says due to it being a night time storm, Environment Canada does not yet have any confirmation whether a tornado touched down.
"We don't always get a lot of evidence and photos, or eye witnesses because of that, and we did notice a few power outages in the area, it sometimes just takes a day or so for people to sort of report back what happened on their properties," Meredith said.
Meredith says the storm cells mainly travelled over farm land in Essex County.
The tornado warning was ended at 12:41 a.m.