Blizzard, monsoon, and now a hurricane

Nothing amazes me quite as much as Toronto weather does. I don’t think there is another place in the world that will grant you access to every conceivable weather system, all at once. You can get sunny skies in the morning, which will darken and then storm enough to flood basements in the afternoon (Summer 2005, took three hours to get home from work that day). You can get 40ºC humid weather with the humidex, and you can get -30ºC frigid weather with the windchill. This past week has been a bit much, even for me. I’m not complaining about the weather, but it’s enough for me to scratch my head and wonder what’s going on every morning when I wake up.

Last Tuesday, there was a veritable blizzard outside, with a ridiculous amount of snow being deposited in the matter of hours. Traffic was at a standstill, cars were spinning out, and lane changes were incredibly dangerous since the tires of cars would have to mount a snowbank that had been building up between lanes of traffic.

Then on Christmas and Boxing Day the sun was out, but everything was still frozen. If you didn’t get to your driveway quickly enough, then you were the proud owner of a brand new skating rink, though if you attempted to skate that, you’d be skating straight into the road due to the incline.

Then yesterday, the heavens opened up and an incredible amount of rain started coming down. I was actually awoken in the morning to the sound of sheets of water pelting my window and the roof of the garage. The ice and snow were no more as it all had melted due to the 10ºC weather outside. Driving was equally as dangerous because there were puddles the size of small ponds on the roads. I was at 16th and Warden when a car in front of me hit a puddle. I was blinded for two seconds because the water was just so much and my wipers weren’t on. Absolutely crazy. The fog yesterday didn’t help conditions either. When I was giving my brother a ride, I couldn’t see more than 100m in front of me. It definitely made for some weird depth perception.

And today, much of the city and the surrounding area is being battered with wind gusts of up to 90km/h. In Buffalo, they are getting hit with 120km/h gusts – enough to bend the uprights in the Bills’ stadium! 120km/h gusts? That’s sufficient to say that the weather system we’re having is similar to a Category One hurricane.

I was driving home last night when the wind started kicking up and at times the car would veer hard enough that it seemed like I was making a lane change. I can only imagine how bad it must be on the highway for people returning from the holidays.

And this week’s weather isn’t any different. Some days it’ll be above freezing, other days it’ll be -10ºC; some days there’ll be snow and flurries, other days there’ll be rain. It’s hilarious how this is just the norm in Toronto and people accept it here. I guess it’s part of being a Torontonian, and personally, I would not trade this crazy weather to be known as a windy city, or a snowy city, or a rainy city. Toronto – the fucked up weather city.