PHOTOS: Powerful thunderstorms sweep through southern Ontario
A cold front plowing into summer-like heat and humidity led to widespread severe thunderstorms across southern Ontario on Wednesday.
Severe thunderstorms erupted over southern Ontario on Wednesday as a cold front plowed into the slog of summer-like heat and humidity parked over the region.
The powerful storms blossomed along the cold front as it spanned the southern half of the province. Folks from Windsor to the Niagara Region had to contend with powerful wind gusts, hail, and torrential rainfall as the storms swept through.
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Drivers had a tough time navigating local roadways as driving rains reduced visibility to dangerously low levels.
Strong wind gusts knocked down trees and power lines, with one downed tree even taking out a traffic light in Windsor. Hydro One reported about 20,000 customers remained without power by mid-afternoon Wednesday, with outages spanning the province.
The bulk of the outages were centred around the heart of Wednesday afternoon’s storm activity, though several thousand outages lingered from early-morning storms in eastern Ontario and several earlier rounds of severe weather across northern sections of the province.
Residents flooded social media with pictures and videos of the storms as they rolled through the area. Check out some of the gripping visuals, below.