storm in toronto

A vicious storm left thousands without power in Toronto last night

A brief yet nasty storm ripped through the City of Toronto last night, bringing with it heavy downpours, winds of up to 100 km/h, and a flood of tweets from people who were shocked by just how wild the weather got.

While fast, lasting about ten minutes in any given area as it moved across the region, last night's weather event was intense. It was also quite entertaining.

If the vibe felt a bit tropical to you — what with the ocean-like smell and fast-moving, torrential sheets of rain — your storm sense is solid: The squall line was a remnant of Atlantic cyclone Cristobal.

The tropical storm hit Southern Ontario on Wednesday evening after ripping across the midwestern United States, leaving severe wind damage (and in some cases, huge balls of hail) in its wake.

Toronto was put under a severe thunderstorm watch around 6:30 p.m., but Environment Canada upgraded the watch to a warning around 10:30 p.m. as the storm approached the city.

The next hour saw social media platforms light up with incredulous posts from locals whose homes were battered by wind and rain.

The sky, too, lit up, but with lightning.

Toronto Hydro announced at 10:48 p.m. that it was "starting to see scattered outages across the city due to tonight's storm."

Outages rolled throughout the night as trees fell onto power lines and crews worked quickly to clean up the mess.

As of 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, some 3,000 Toronto Hydro customers were still without power.

Sadly, trees were cracked in half and / or uprooted as the storm passed through.

Patio furniture and plants were lost.

Compared to some other parts of the province, however, Toronto fared pretty well.

Two tornadoes were actually confirmed by federal weather authorities to have touched down outside London, Ont., in Glencoe and Belmont. No injuries were reported but local news outlets report that buildings were damaged.

While not as bad as some of the wind storms Toronto has seen in recent years, this one was certainly a doozy.

RIP to the trees felled by last night's breeze.

Lead photo by

Dewucme


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