Toronto and the GTA on Monday were facing a severe weather warning that will end Tuesday morning with the chance of freezing rain, and snow in the afternoon and into the overnight.
The change in weather and temperatures dipping below freezing could make the commute home challenging.
All this may seem like a vastly different weather forecast from Sunday.
The change in the weather is all part of one system: a Texas low coming up from the United States. It came into the region on Saturday and gave us an unusually warm Sunday, reaching a high of 16 C.
This low did not come out of no where though, it caused serious damage on its way up from the southern states, David Phillips, Senior Climatologist for Environment Canada, told Humber News on Monday.
““It got pretty boisterous in the states. It caused six deaths from tornados in Iowa,” Phillips said.
The weekend system arrived in southern Ontario and brought brief episodes of thunder and lighting in parts of the GTA.
Phillips said people should not get comfortable with warmer weather, yet.
“We had a teaser yesterday,” Phillips said.
It was not only the temperature that stuck out for those across the GTA, it was the winds, he said.
“The strongest winds I saw at Pearson got up to 81 km/h. They were over 100 km/h in Hamilton,” Phillips said.
There is also a chance the GTA could see more snow, although Phillips said it is not forecasted but is based on the increased amount of snow we’ve already had this year.
“We have had a total of almost 140 cm of snow; we typically get about 110 cm – so about 30 cm more than normal,” Phillips said, noting that’s a 53 per cent increase from 2021.
Given the higher snowfall rate this year, there could be a chance the GTA sees up to 18 centimetres more snow by the end of March into early April to close out the winter season.
