Winter hasn't been so kind to Ontario's snowbelt regions so far

Heavy amounts of lake-effect snow have buried several Ontario communities this season, with the open lakes and the frigid cold creating a near-constant snow machine.

Depending on who you ask in Ontario, it's either been an oddly quiet winter so far, aside from the recent cold snap, or there has been so much snowfall that the banks piled up along the streets are being measured in feet now.

While the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has skimmed by with a few small-scale snowfall occurrences, with not even one event to drop more than 10 centimetres at a time on the city of Toronto, it's quite the different story when you head farther west and north of the region.

RELATED: Great Lakes ice coverage skyrockets amid cold snap

Ontario's snowbelt regions around Lake Huron and Georgian Bay have been particularly hit hard with lake-effect snow squall events this winter, seemingly never-ending since the first wallop in the final days of November 2024.

Locales such as Gravenhurst, Bracebridge, Orillia, Barrie, Kincardine and Owen Sound are just several of the communities that have reported hefty totals from multiple lake-effect snowfall events through this winter so far.

Nathan Howes: Orillia, Ontario, snow squall, snowstorm, storm, snowfall, winter driving. Jan. 2, 2025

Jan. 2, 2025 snow squall iN Orillia, Ont. (Nathan Howes/The Weather Network)

The first occurrence in the 2024-25 lake-effect snow squall season took a toll on Gravenhurst and Bracebridge, especially. The multi-day event, which dumped more than 100 cm of snow on Echo Bay, brought road closures, collisions and power outages to a good portion of cottage country. As a result, the Town of Gravenhurst declared a state of emergency, lasting for several days, and activated the town’s virtual Emergency Operations Centre.

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And earlier this month, a lake-effect snowfall event in Barrie, Ont., prompted the city to declare a significant weather event, impacting travel and services throughout the municipality. That particular multi-day affair saw at least 73.6 cm of snow pile up in Phelpston, northwest of Barrie, with more than 63 cm accumulate in Markdale.

The Weather Network visits Bruce County

Mark Robinson, Storm Hunter and meteorologist at The Weather Network, visited Bruce County recently to see how deep the snowpack is.

One of those he spoke to was Mike Walsh, a Kincardine resident who said local folks used to see snow accumulations like this "all the time, but now they call it a high winter."

"You see the lake, it's frozen over. So, what happens is when it gets really, really cold like this, this is what happens. But, we're used to it up here," said Walsh.

When can we expect the lake-effect machine to shut down?

With that said, folks living near Lake Huron and Georgian Bay will all want to know one thing: When can we expect to see the end of the lake-effect snow squalls?

There is some good news to report on that front with the Great Lakes seeing a noticeable jump in ice coverage from the recent cold snap.

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As of Saturday, Jan. 25, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that 24.1 per cent of the Great Lakes were covered by ice. The region’s normal ice coverage is about 24 per cent by this point in January. Lake Erie is now up to 86 per cent ice cover––its highest since 2022.

That news isn't quite enough for the snowbelts to say goodbye to lake-effect machine, yet, but we are moving closer to the day when areas around Lake Huron and Georgian Bay will be able bid adieu until the late fall sometime.

Below is just a selection of some of the visuals that from the snow squall events that have been posted to social media thus far.

With files from Lauren O'Neil, video journalist and lead at The Weather Network, and Mark Robinson, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.

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