As snow clean-up continues in parts of Ontario, intense squalls move south

On Saturday, snow blew off the Great Lakes and closed a stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway in northern Ontario. The Georgian Bay area was blanketed by almost a metre of snowfall.

Snow squalls that buried parts of Ontario around Georgian Bay at the beginning of the weekend are moving south, with weather warnings and alerts stretching from Collingwood to London and the northern edges of the Greater Toronto Area.

On Saturday, almost a metre of snow blew off the Great Lakes and closed a stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway. More than 30,000 homes were also without power after the storm.

Communities on the shores of lakes Superior and Huron felt the brunt of the weather event and remained under a snow squall warning. Areas around Niagara Falls and Kingston were also under lake-effect snow squall watches.

Gravenhurst, in the Muskoka region, was hit with 140 centimetres of snowfall and declared a state of emergency.

Global News chief meteorologist Anthony Farnell said the volume of snow dumped on parts of the province was due to the warm weather from the past weeks finally meeting winter chills.

“It’s been a very mild and calm fall up until now and that has led to record warm water temperatures on all five of the Great Lakes, including Georgian Bay,” he said. “So, record warm water and now finally the arctic air is here and that’s the reason we’re having such intense snow squalls.”

The snow threat now looks to be moving further south, with Environment Canada issuing snow squall warnings and predicting 15 to 25 centimetres of snow for communities on the edge of Lake Huron and the southern shores of Georgian Bay.

Squalls are also expected as far south as London, Ont., and could drop up to 30 centimetres of snow on the western Ontario city by Tuesday morning.