Toronto shatters record for the wettest summer season

Toronto has shattered records for the wettest summer season after a weekend of intense rain and windy weather.

Geoff Coulson, warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada, told CP24 on Monday that a record-breaking 128.3 millimetres of rain fell at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Saturday alone.

“[It was a] huge amount of rain. Pretty much double a month’s worth of rain or more falling in the span of just a few hours on Saturday,” Coulson said.

“With Saturday’s number added into the total for June, July and August, we’ve now shattered the season record at Pearson Airport.”

He went on to say that this June, July, and August are the “wettest” they’ve “ever had” at the airport.

In addition to the heavy rainfall on Saturday, Coulson said the region also saw heavy rainfall in July, which has been marked the wettest month ever at Pearson due to the several thunderstorms that took place and the remnants of Hurricane Beryl that moved through.

“And we still got some time left in the month of August to add to that total,” he added.

The previous record for summer rainfall stood at 396.2 millimetres, according to the national weather agency, but the airport has already seen 475.7 millimetres this season.

The weekend weather also saw a tornado hit the community of Ayr, Ont., according to Western University’s Northern Tornadoes Project, which confirmed that the tornado touched down in the region, which is about an hour’s drive west of Toronto, at around 11 a.m. Saturday.

“The track wasn’t all that long about 5.2 kilometres long and about 230 wide at its widest point, but some of its damage was fairly significant,” Coulson said. “Structural damage to the roofs damage of some buildings, tree damage in some areas, as well as some empty rail cars that were tipped over. So a pretty significant event.”

He added that it was a bit unusual that the storm formed in the morning, when usually such storms form in the evening time.

“It was somewhat noteworthy for happening at around 10:40 in the morning on Saturday. Many of our damaging wind events and tornadoes tend to happen in the late afternoon or early evening. So that does make this event stand out somewhat,” Coulson said.