No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. It's not the middle of winter and it's not freezing outside. So how can you account for residents in shorts and tank tops near the 401 and Sheppard shovelling a mountain of ice off their driveways with a week left in June?
Chalk it up to some of the strangest summer weather the GTA has ever seen, a huge disturbance that hit with a vengeance on Monday afternoon, a torrent that included heavy rain, high winds, several centimetres of huge hail and even a few funnel clouds.
It was a dangerous day to be outside, as a 15-year-old girl found to her peril. The teen was at a park near
York Mills and Leslie when lightning struck the ground nearby. That set off what's called a 'pressure wave' strong enough to knock the youngster off her feet. She wasn't exactly hit by a bolt from the blue - but she may have felt like she was.
She was rushed to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in stable condition and is expected to be fine.
Meanwhile, an unverified report says a lightning strike may have started a fire at a home at Bathurst and Steeles. The celestial zap appears to have set a roof and a tree ablaze on
Twin Circle Court. But the extent of the damage or the actual cause still isn't clear.
The other casualties were the streets, where the storm brought so much precipitation down so fast, it left a flood of problems behind.
Police were forced to close a stretch of
Sheppard Ave. between Keele and the Allen because of too much water.
There were similar troubles at Steeles and the 404, Wilson and Finch and even busy Yonge from Davisville to St. Clair. The Bayview Extension near Bloor St. was under water for much of the rush hour.
And things were a mess at Finch and Highway 400, after hail melted and left a flood in its wake.
Vito Galati was stunned when the storm raged over his home on Sentinel Road. But what he found afterwards was even more shocking - a two centimetre-deep layer of ice from fallen hail that required him to break out his snow shovel (top left.)
"We were inside and all of a sudden we heard a lot of lot noise and then we come outside. We thought it was rain ... We're looking closely and it's ice pellets." He can't quite find the words to describe it. "Shovelling snow in sandals ... unbelievable. I don't know what to expect."
And it wasn't just those in their cars who suffered the slings and arrows of Mother Nature's wrath. On
Dovehouse Ave. in the Keele and Sheppard area, several homes were flooded by raging torrents which came down too hard and too fast to go down the drain.
"Water just came pouring in the front door, it was up really, really high," recalls a tired Melissa Buttrill, who spent much of Monday mopping up the mess. "We were putting towels there but there was just nothing we could do."
How high was the water? "A foot and a half, two feet," estimates Blake Holliday. "In 45 minutes."
Where water wasn't the problem, electricity was. Traffic lights were out at many intersections after the big storm blew by, turning well travelled intersections like Bathurst and Finch and Yonge and Cummer into crowded and chaotic four-way stops.
What's causing this latest massive disturbance? Experts say while it's more common to get these kinds of conditions during the hot and sticky weather, the lake breeze played a part in this one.
"During the summertime with the lake remaining fairly cold, and the temperatures over land warming up, there's a local circulation that develops that allows the air to flow from the lake inland and that provides a bit of convergence, and ... if the conditions are right aloft, there is enough potential for the thunderstorms along that convergence line," explains Environment Canada's severe weather expert Peter Kimbrell.
What should you do if you see the threatening conditions? Use the 30-30 rule. "If you can count 30 seconds between lightning and thunder, time to go indoors," Kimbrell suggests. "And after the storm is over, wait 30 minutes before going outside. Lightning can hit 30 minutes after the main storm has passed."
We didn't see a tornado out of this, but it was possible. And what looked like funnel clouds were spotted all over the GTA.
Twisters may already have touched down in some cities near London, Ontario on the weekend. Environment Canada is investigating after two funnel clouds were spotted in the southwest part of the province on Sunday. Officials will be probing the claim to make sure, but there was some damage left behind.
Ontario generally gets 12-15 tornadoes in June and July.
But if it seems like we've getting more active weather than usual this month, it's not your imagination. Environment Canada tells
CityNews.ca we get
5 or 6 thunderstorms during a normal June. So far, including Monday, we've had 11 - and there's still a week to go, with more predicted for Thursday and Friday.
And talk about a soggy spring. There have been 16 days with a least some trace of rain in the past 23, and 12 of the last 13 alone have had some precipitation.
The problem with these disturbances is that they move in rather quickly and you don't get a lot of notice before the skies open up. One minute it seems sunny, while the next, ominous clouds move in and the downpours - along with lightning, rumbles of thunder and even hail - begin soon after.
It's all part of a giant unstable air mass that simply refuses to move out, and plagued parts of the province this weekend. Areas in Burlington and Vaughan were especially hard hit on Sunday with two massive deluges that brought tiny pellets of pea-sized hail to many homes.
Other places got nothing at all.
The good news is we may actually squeeze in a few sunny and warm days before the next go-round. Tuesday and Wednesday should have a mix of sun and clouds and normal highs around 24C and 26C.
More thunderstorms are in the forecast for Thursday and Friday.
See the seven day forecast here
See a gallery of your photos sent at the height of the storm here