A normal snowstorm day in Toronto.

[Odie]

Greater Toronto a mess as storm rages

Posted: December 19, 2008, 4:08 PM by Rob Roberts



By Cigdem Iltan and Kate Scroggins, National Post

Southern Ontario remained in the grip of its first major snowstorm of the season this afternoon, amid blinding whiteout conditions, powerful winds and 20 cm of snow.

“I think people were dreaming too hard for a white Christmas, said Environment Canada’s senior climatologist David Phillips.

There were more than 170 accidents on city roads and highways and many plane, train and city service cancellations. But the storm has behaved pretty much as forecasters expected, and should come to an end in Toronto by the supper hour, Mr. Phillips said.

Many Toronto sidestreets remained unploughed this afternoon, with some motorists simply abandoning their vehicles.

Snowploughs were focusing on opening the arterial roads, but sidestreets won’t be cleared until the flakes stop falling. This is a strategy to ensure local roads won’t have to be ploughed twice, while focusing on the main streets to help people move around, said Toronto’s director of transportation services Peter Noehammer.

‘‘When we send the ploughs out to clear the local roads, they’ll be ploughing for anywhere from 15 to 20 hours. So if we start at six o’clock this evening, they’ll wind up finishing at about noon tomorrow, Saturday. If we were to send them out now they’d finish at eight in the morning, but because so much snow would have fallen behind them, they would have had to immediately had to turn around and go out again.

He expects the storm to taper off around dinner time, so trucks will hit side streets around 6 or 7 p.m.

“Our threshold for the local roads is 8 cm or when it stops snowing. With 15 cm coming today, we’re basically going to wait until that 15 cm comes down and then we’ll clear it all off, Mr. Noehammer said.

They also know more is to come: The GTA can expect two more major storms in the next week, including another wallop on Sunday and potentially another five to 10 cms of snow on Christmas Eve, said Mr. Phillips.

Nearly 18 cm have fallen so far at Pearson airport, and the downtown core is likely at 20 cms and counting, estimates Mr. Phillips.

The fierce winds have made a bad situation worse. Winds gusted up to 41 km/hr at Pearson International Airport Friday afternoon, and winds have been recorded at between 46 and 63 km/hr in downtown Toronto.

Two people suffered minor injuries after broken glass fell 30 storeys from a building under construction at Bay and Adelaide streets. Police closed Bay Street from Richmond Street to King Street, and Adelaide Street from York Street to Bay Street because strong winds are blowing the broken glass around.

Pearson has cancelled about 150 flights so far because of the weather. GO Transit has also cancelled six afternoon trains on the Lakeshore West and East lines.

Toronto City Hall, all municipal civic centres and drop-in programs closed as of 2 p.m. Friday due to weather conditions, but community centres and programs are expected to back on schedule tomorrow morning. Richmond Hill closed its municipal buildings an hour later.

Highway 400 southbound at Aurora Road closed at about 11:30 a.m. after a tractor trailer jacknifed and caused a 15 to 20 vehicle pileup, said OPP Sgt. Dave Woodford. Two people were taken to hospital. The highway re-opened just after 2 p.m., but visibility on the highways remains very low and roads are still extremely slippery, he said.

“If you don’t have to be out there, stay where you are until the snow stops and we can clean the mess up, Sgt. Woodford said.



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These storms are quite the norm here, suck it up!:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl