Toronto escapes brunt of winter storm; Hamilton and Niagara Region hit hardest

Toronto was spared from the wrath of a late winter snowstorm but areas in Hamilton and Niagara Region weren’t so lucky.

Environment Canada issued a special weather statement for the GTA ahead of the snowfall on Thursday, however it was lifted at around 4 a.m. on Friday.

The city was expected to receive about five centimetres of snow overnight with much higher totals further west in the Hamilton area, where up to 15 centimetres was expected.

While the snow has stopped falling in Toronto, it continues to amass in the Niagara Region.

“Big story change when you head down to the Niagara Region where they are still looking at accumulating snow and totals that could approach 15 to 30 centimetres,” CP24 Meteorologist Bill Coulter said. “If you are tracking down towards Hamilton or Niagara and think ‘Oh we missed this’ you will face a very different world on the south shore of Lake Ontario.”

The dumping of snow forced the closure of schools at both the District School Board of Niagara and the Niagara Catholic District School Board.

“It’s been raging since last night, just before I went to bed at midnight it started coming down,” one resident, who did not provide his name, said. “I got up two or three times and said, “Oh man, I have to go and shovel this in the morning.”

The kids, now school-free, felt otherwise.

“It’s amazingly fun,” said one kid before falling back into a pile of freshly shoveled snow.

The fairly warm temperatures – a high of 3 C in the forecast for Toronto and 1 C in St. Catharines – made it particularly tricky for those tasked with snow shoveling.

“I’ve been doing this for 25 years, I think this is the densest and hardest it’s ever been,” said another St. Catharines resident.

Drivers cautioned on roads

Earlier on Friday, police are urged drivers to slow down and be aware of the potential for slippery conditions following the overnight snowfall. Though, by the afternoon, most of the roadways were clear.

The blast of winter does come after an extended bout of spring-like conditions. Snow or not, police are reminding drivers to pay attention to the roads.

“Comparatively to the 15 centimetres that we may have seen today this is actually a pretty easy situation that we got facing us but it will still boil down to drivers using caution,” Const. Clint Stibbe told CP24 on Friday morning. “I did see a few drivers going far too quickly. You need to keep in mind that there could be ice, especially on elevated portions such as the expressway off ramps.”

Stibbe said that some roads remain “slushy” and that there is potential for icy conditions should temperatures drop overnight.

According to OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt, there were about 20 collisions on GTA roads overnight, though not all of them were weather-related

He said that there was also a jackknifed transport truck on the Queen Elizabeth Way approaching Jordan Road in Niagara Region and another collision involving a transport truck on Highway 401 near Brighton. All eastbound lanes on the highway were closed between County Road 30 and County Road 40 but reopened at around 7 a.m.

“Just take it easy, give yourself some extra time and be alert,” Schmidt said. “It may not look that bad but sometimes it can be very deceptive as well. You could have that little bit of sheen on the highway that is going to send you into the wall.”

Salt trucks and plows were on standby

The City of Toronto had about 200 salt trucks on standby in advance of the overnight storm but did not end up needing that much manpower.

Director of Transportation Myles Currie told CP24 that officials were expecting as much as 10 to 12 centimetres of snow at one point and were relieved when the storm ended up not being as bad as advertised.

“We had our patrollers out monitoring conditions and at about 11 p.m. last night we started to salt our expressways and main roadways. We did two rounds of salting before the rush hour and the roads are in pretty good shape,” he said on Friday morning. “Right now our focus is primarily on the side streets. We started salting them at 4 a.m. and they are still snow covered and a little slick so we are asking people to drive slowly as they go through the neighbourhoods.”