The Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory (CSSL), created in 2024, has completed its first full year of operations and released its 2025 annual report. Using the Northern Tornadoes Project’s open-data description and the Northern Mesonet Project’s portal updates, we’ve put together a short guide to what’s been released and some peril-specific ways homeowners might apply the data.
Why Does the CSSL Matter for Insurance?
Determining the cost to insure a home requires consideration of several factors, including severe storm information. Although CSSL does not determine insurance premiums, provide coverage, or determine claim outcomes, it collects better data to identify, document, and understand tornadoes, downbursts, hailstorms, flash floods, and other types of intense, localized, short-duration severe storms in Canada.
CSSL data have many applications, including climatology and other weather and climate research, catastrophe modelling, building science, emergency management, disaster planning and preparedness, disaster loss mitigation and the insurance industry.
What CSSL Tools Are Available Now?
| Resource | What a user can do | How to use it carefully |
|---|---|---|
| NTP Open Data and dashboards | View Canadian tornado events, assessments, paths and related information | Before conducting the analysis, check the time period, filters, revision notes and terms of use. |
| CSSL Weather Intelligence | View current observations, forecasts, historical data and severe-storm summaries. | Coverage and quality vary by station, and the platform should not be treated as an address-level hazard model. |
| CSSL annual report | Review project activity, methods, field work and yearly outputs | A one-year project summary, on its own, is not a long-term trend. |
| CSSL publications | Read methods and research findings behind specific hazards | Choose a study whose geographical coverage, time frame, and measure matches your decision of interest. |
What Current Severe-Storm Data Shows
Any conclusions about severe-storm trends need to recognize that trends can differ among tornadoes, large hail, damaging straight-line winds and flash flooding. Data quality, detection methods, and appropriate time scales also vary by hazard.
Advances in detection, including satellite imagery, better surveys and reanalysis of historical data, mean NTP can pick up severe storms it would have missed in the past. That makes the numbers bigger, but it doesn’t necessarily mean there are more severe storms.
Read More: Read How Home Insurance Covers Tornado Damage
How Homeowners Can Use Severe-Storm Information
You can’t protect your home from all weather-related hazards. But hazard information can help you understand which inspections and improvements to consider next. Always check with local authorities, a qualified contractor and insurers before making changes or beginning an improvement project.
Read More: Use the Canadian Home Maintenance Checklist
Prioritize Risk-Reduction Improvements
If the property is vulnerable to wind or tornadoes, inspect the roof covering, its attachment to walls, soffits, garage doors and exterior doors.
If the property is vulnerable to hail, inspect the roof covering’s tested impact performance and its current condition.
If the property is vulnerable to flash flooding, inspect grading, roof drainage, below-grade openings, sewer-backflow protection, and whether the sump pump is likely to work.
Develop an Emergency Preparedness Plan
Always follow instructions given by local officials during an emergency. Do not rely on CSSL research dashboards during an emergency. Decide where you would go in case of high winds or a flood.
Have a list of contacts for your insurance policies. Prepare for severe weather. Create an inventory of your home that is easy to access when needed.
Keep Yourself Informed
Data from CSSL projects are meant to help you learn about recorded events. They are not intended to provide warnings about hazards.
Always consult Environment and Climate Change Canada and local emergency alert channels for official warnings.
Evaluate Your Home Insurance
- Check the fine print of your policy for wind/hail deductibles, endorsements/exclusions such as for sewer backups and overland water, language about how the insurer will settle a roof claim, provisions for additional living expense coverage and debris removal, etc. Coverage depends on the cause of the loss.
- Understand what mitigation efforts the insurer will credit before investing in them for a discount.
Read More: Compare Overland Water Coverage and Flood Insurance