toronto wind

Toronto just smashed a weather record with brutally strong winds

Spring may be here on paper, but Toronto is in the midst of a transition out of winter weather that has made for some unpleasant days this week.

Despite temperatures trending above freezing, Wednesday has been a particularly miserable day to be outdoors as freezing rain and high winds whip across the city.

Cold rain and wind are nothing out of the ordinary for late March, but Wednesday came with a special weather statement warning of freezing rain and unusually strong gusts of wind, the latter surpassing a long-standing weather record.

Maximum gusts of 80 kilometres per hour were recorded at Toronto Island on Wednesday, the highest wind reading for any Mar. 23 since record-keeping began over 50 years ago.

The previous record for windspeed was set back in 1991, with comparably high maximum gusts of 78 km/h, though in at least 52 years, no Mar. 23 has been this windy.

The wind has since died down a bit on Toronto Island, maximum gusts topping out at 53 km/h as of around 2 p.m. according to Environment Canada.

Though that doesn't mean we're out of the woods, wind picking pack up to 40 km/h with gusting up to 70 in the evening hours before dying back down to light winds before morning.

Winter is behind us, and patio season is now within reach, but there will still be a few weeks of chilly, damp, miserable weather before Toronto can get out and start enjoying the sunshine again.

Lead photo by

Jack Landau


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