While southern Ontario suffered a nasty weather day, tornado-wise, Thursday was by no means a provincial record for either numbers of tornadoes or ferocity, an Environment Canada meteorologist said Friday.

The full story might not be known for several days as investigations are continuing, Peter Kimbell told ctvtoronto.ca. "It takes time to pull all this together."

"We know there was an F2 in Vaughn," he said. "We also know there was a tornado in Newmarket, magnitude still undetermined. There's also one in Milton, at least an F1."

The Fujita scale of tornado intensity goes from F0 to F5. An F2 tornado has winds of between 180 and 240 kilometres per hour. In Vaughan, that was enough to damage an estimated 600 homes.

But there was also a confirmed F2 tornado in Durham, a community south of Owen Sound in Grey County. An 11-year-old boy died in that storm.

Damage reported in Craigleath, northwest of Collingwood, might be from a tornado, but that hasn't been confirmed yet. It could have come from the same system that spawned the Durham tornado, Kimball said.

There were reports of water spouts on Lake Nipissing, which was under a tornado warning at the time. Environment Canada has also been asked to investigate some damage north of Belleville, Kimball said.

There were also reports of damage in the Gravenhurst area, but Kimball said that might be from straight-line winds generated by severe thunderstorms.

When you add it all up, that's four confirmed tornadoes and three possible twisters.

On Aug. 2, 2006, Kimball said 14 tornadoes struck the province, with most clustered in the Haliburtons.

However, they were relatively weak. Most of the tornadoes on that August day were in the F0 to F1 categories.

The monster day for tornadoes in Ontario remains May 31, 1985. That is the day of the Barrie tornado.

Kimball said 13 tornadoes were spawned on that day, with two of them rated as F4s.

The Barrie tornado is linked to eight deaths and more than 150 injuries.

The more southerly F4 that day is linked to four deaths, but it travelled through less populated areas.

Two years later, the Edmonton tornado of July 31, 1987 would leave 27 people dead and injure another 300. It was ranked as an F4.

Ontario has never experienced an F5 tornado, which would generate winds of 418 to 509 kilometers per hour. The only Canadian community to have done so is Elie, Man. That tornado struck on June 22, 2007, but fortunately, there were no deaths or injuries.