Heavy rain caused havoc for parts of Toronto

Global News: A heavy downpour caused flash flooding and transportation problems for many in Toronto on Wednesday evening and into Thursday morning. A band of heavy rain moving south through the city caused between 30 and 40 millimetres of rain. A flood warning issued by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority Wednesday has since been cancelled.

Motorists were told to be prepared for dangerous driving conditions and the risk of hydroplaning - especially in low-lying areas and underpasses – but Toronto Emergency Services still had their hands full. A section of the DVP was closed in both directions between Bloor St. and the Gardiner Expressway due to flooding but was reopened to traffic just before 6 a.m.

There is currently no GO Transit train service from the Old Cummer and Oriole GO stations. Trains will only service the Richmond Hill and Langstaff GO stations. The Toronto Transit Commission had earlier advised customers that trains were bypassing Lawrence subway station due to flooding.

Shuttle buses were brought in to move passengers around the affected station in the north end of the city. Toronto Hydro also reported roughly 3,500 customers in East York were without power for several hours before it was restored just before midnight....

2013 flash flooding in Toronto, shot by mark.watmough, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Toronto recovering from sudden, severe flood

CTV News (Canada): Toronto awoke to a soggy morning Tuesday after a record-smashing rainfall soaked the city, leaving stranded cars, flooded basements and widespread power outages in the city. Pearson International Airport reported 126 mm of rain throughout Monday, breaking the previous single-day rainfall record for the city set back on Oct. 15, 1954, when hurricane Hazel dumped 121 mm of rain.

"We had 90 millimetres of rain within an hour and a half at the airport," said Peter Kimbell, a meteorologist at Environment Canada, who said the storm ranked among the most intense rainfalls the city has ever seen.

Downtown Toronto reported slightly less -- 97 mm of rain for the day, according to the weather agency. "It was a bit of a surprise yesterday," said Kimbell. "The (Environment Canada) warning was actually not issued until the storm had begun."

Utility crews were still at work Tuesday morning trying to restore electricity to thousands of customers left in the dark by flood-related blackouts.

Toronto Hydro said about 35,000 of its customers remained without power early Tuesday, mainly in the city's west end. The utility said it was awaiting supply from Hydro One and that it could be as late as mid-morning before all of its customers had their electricity restored.

...The flooding also caused a full closure of the city's north-sound Don Valley Parkway on Monday evening, but both northbound and southbound lanes were re-opened in time for the morning rush hour. The downpour left several roads and underpasses flooded and a number of people trapped in vehicles -- some with water up to their vehicle windows....

Wrong year, wrong season. The flooded Don River, as seen from south of the Bloor Viaduct. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in February 1919. Nice photo, though

Toronto must overhaul aging infrastructure to meet dramatic climate change projections

Laura Kane in the Toronto Star: Toronto must overhaul its aging infrastructure to adapt to dramatic new climate change projections — a process that could cost billions — say some councillors and environmentalists. But some fear the city is not taking the matter seriously enough, as the chair of the Parks and Environment Committee remains skeptical of the projections.

A study commissioned by the city and set to be discussed Tuesday by the parks committee predicts temperatures about 4.4 degrees warmer and a marked increase in extreme storms by 2040. “If people are concerned about a crumbling Gardiner, this study makes it look like a teeny, tiny pothole,” said Franz Hartmann of the Toronto Environmental Alliance. “If we’re not paying attention, it will literally be catastrophic.”

The study, called “Toronto’s Future Weather and Climate Driver Study,” foresees Toronto’s climate 30 years in the future as marked by fewer but more intense storms, less snow in the winter and increased heat and humidity in the summer.

Torontonians have already braved three of the worst storms in the city’s recorded history in the past 12 years, and sweltered through the earliest known heat wave on June 19, 2012. The city’s roads, sewers, storm drains and electrical grids were simply not built to withstand the new climate, said Councillor Gord Perks, a member of the committee.

“If you took Toronto and put it in another part of the world, our infrastructure would be wrong for that weather. This is the same kind of problem,” he said. He said the study means the city has “billions of dollars of work to do,” including expanding the capacity of sewers and re-engineering green spaces to accommodate ponds of rainwater....

The CN Tower in Toronto struck by lightning, shot by Raul Heinrich, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license