Damaging storms sweep across Ontario, causing flooding, power outages in Toronto area
Severe storms in the Greater Toronto Area caused widespread flooding, power outages, and structural damage to Rogers Stadium. Emergency services responded to numerous incidents, including downed power lines and submerged vehicles, as the region faced extreme weather alerts.
Why it matters
The event underscores the vulnerability of urban infrastructure to increasingly severe weather patterns in Southern Ontario.
Toronto Fire Services survey the scene where a tree downed a power line, starting a fire during a storm on Wednesday. Keito Newman/The Canadian Press
Severe storms cut across the Greater Toronto Area late Wednesday afternoon, causing widespread power outages, localized flooding and serious damage to a major concert venue as an intense weather system brought torrential rain, large hail and the risk of a tornado to wide swaths of southern Ontario.
The weather office issued multiple emergency alerts for extreme weather in parts of the GTA as skies darkened to almost nighttime levels over the city’s downtown and hail pummelled neighbourhoods further north.
Rogers Stadium, a 50,000-capacity music venue in the city’s north end, sustained “significant damage” in the storm, Live Nation Canada said in a statement.
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