After several days of violent and damaging weather, parts of the GTA were once again rocked by powerful thunderstorms Monday afternoon.
Strong winds and golf ball-sized hail were reported in areas like Richmond Hill, Maple (top left), Vaughan, Pickering, York and Durham Regions. (See gallery below for what it looked like to
CityNews viewers.)
Storm warnings were subsequently issued, but have since been lifted for most of Southern Ontario as the fronts move out over the lake and off to the east.
But it was crazy while it lasted, with some reporting pieces of ice bigger than a penny or even a toonie pelting their homes and cars for several intense and frightening minutes around 4pm, as the storm raged around them.
Downtown Toronto escaped the worst of the system, but heavy rains could still make for a soggy evening and a wet week overall.
Monday's storm follows a night of extreme
lightning and thunder, which left a scattered trail of debris and tree branches down all over the GTA.
One Toronto neighbourhood near
Mt. Pleasant and Eglinton wound up with kindling on the streets, as the severe storms snapped long standing branches as though they were matchsticks. "About 5:30 last night, a huge bang," recalls homeowner Beth Bergess. "I looked out the window and we've lost half of our tree."
More branches wound up tangled in hydro wires as crews worked mightily to clean up the mess.
In Pickering, about 150 customers were without power well into Monday afternoon, as the local utility tried to repair the damage.
Despite the fact it's almost summer,
CityNews meteorologist Michael Kuss notes it's not all that unusual. "Looks like the summer, at least the early parts of it, are going to remain warm as we've seen so far through the late spring. But it's also going to be a little bit wet so that's a great combination for the farmers. But we could see some more storms at least through the early parts of the summer."
If it seems like it's been wetter than normal this month, it's not your imagination. Between June 1
st and the 15
th, there were 71 millimetres of rain recorded at
Pearson
International
Airport
. A normal June gets 74.2 mm - and we've still got nearly half a month to go.
Last year, one of the driest on record, saw only 43.2 mm during the same month.
It's just the latest in a long series of strange weather patterns over the past few weeks. The GTA has been treated to everything from frost warnings to heatwaves and cold spells to destructive thunderstorms - and even some potential funnel cloud sightings.
The start of the brand new week has done nothing to end the wacky weather, during what promises to be a cooler than normal spell for mid-June. And you'll really notice the temperature. While Monday's high hit 23C, the rest of the week looks well below what it should be for this time of year. We'll be lucky to reach just 18C on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
Summer officially arrives on Friday, and it will finally feel like it. The current prediction is for a high of 24C that day - the norm for this time of year.
But we may not see much sun until then.
All this comes despite Environment Canada's prediction that this summer should be hotter than usual. But it may have to go some to beat last year. The city sweltered through 10 heat alerts in 2007 - and five extreme heat alerts. So far, we've had only one of each in 2008.
Last year was also a nearly perfect summer, the driest in 50 years, with great weather on all three of the major long weekends. We can only hope that trend stays this same in the coming months - Victoria Day this year
dawned gloomy and cold, with heavy rain and a bitter wind chill that left few thinking of the first days of summer.
Things were even worse in cottage country - some people there actually saw some snow flakes on the long weekend.
Check the seven day forecast here