Results tagged “weather”

Unintended side-effect of the Star's website redesign: when it's overcast, as it was last night, our esteemed CN Tower looks very much like a magical cloud-farting machine. The world's tallest magical cloud-farting machine, thank you very much.

                     

The lightning is gone, the tornadoes have dissipated, and the skies are awe-inspiring. Here are some of the best photos of tonight's turbulent heavens from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Auntie Em! It's a twister! A whole series of them! Toronto has always enjoyed geographic coordinates virtually immune to natural disasters, but the storms this summer aren't making us feel so safe anymore. Like something from a Roland Emmerich disaster flick, southwestern Ontario is actually being besieged by some pretty serious Tornados. According to rapidly updating media reports (with video!), funnels have been seen in Collingwood, Vaughan, Markdale, and following what police are calling a "major incident," at least one person is dead in Durham, just south of Owen Sound.

                   

This summer's been something of a bummer, weather-wise, but that doesn't mean that there haven't been plenty of moments that have left us completely in awe—like last night's colossal long-lasting lightning storm, which covered the city for several hours, and which might be duplicated again today. Above are a selection of photos from photographers in Torontoist's Flickr pool, who braved the storms by holding small metal, electric objects pointed up at it, many of them focusing on the lightning conduit that is the CN Tower.

     

While running errands today, our Tony Makepeace (the man behind Panoramaist) captured two Loblaws—one at Queens Quay East and Jarvis Street and the other at Leslie Street and Eastern Avenue—particularly dramatically hit by today's rainstorms. If this was a novel about Loblaws, we'd totally call it pathetic fallacy, and point to the store's parent company's ambivalence-evoking acquisition of T&T Supermarket as the cause of the deluge. Since it's the real world, though, our biggest excuse for showing you these photos is that they're simply extraordinary and surreal to look at.

            

On Saturday night, just before sunset, and just after a flash storm, Toronto hosted an exceptional rainbow—well, two exceptional rainbows, one on top of the other. And, as is usually the case with dramatic weather these days, photos of it flowed into our Flickr pool. Some of our favourite shots are above.

Although Mother Nature may not be providing the most worthy goodbye (she always was a fickle lover), one of her biggest crushes, Dave Devall, is retiring today. After forty-eight years as weatherman at CTV Toronto, our favourite local TV grandpa is packing up the plexiglass and felt pen. And other than deciding to audition with two thousand others for the fledgling Toronto station decades ago, it may be the best choice he has made. Since he announced his retirement on February 2, he has had a street in Scarborough named after him, been recognized as the world record holder for longest tenure as a weather man, awarded the Radio-Television News Directors' Association of Canada’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and named an Honorary Colonel of the Canadian Forces.

Although March has been remarkably snow-free, Toronto and Region Conservation has still issued flood advisories as heavy rains swelled rivers throughout the city and wreaked havoc in the city's low-lying valleys. What floody surprises will April hold? There's no need to wait passively for weather forecasts and news releases. Thanks to TRCA, you can monitor river and dam levels throughout the GTA's watersheds in near real-time.

A CP24 anchor introduced a weather report this morning by saying "They're calling it 'snow-mageddon,'" before gleefully launching into the standard predictions of panic and mayhem that accompany virtually every cloud blowing within 100 km of Toronto. At the time, we thought, "Who's 'they'? Don't you mean 'you'"?

             

Fall seems to breeze by all too quickly between summer and winter. The first snow flurries have already fallen on the city and the chill in the wind only makes us think of the hardship to come. However, the season is punctuated by a wonderful display of colour that is often missed by those of us working and living in the city. For an accessible fix of it, High Park is well-worth a visit at this time of year; the leaves are reaching peak colour in the next few days.

                                    

It's been a long, hot, cold, cloudy, humid, wet, stormy, rainbowy summer, and the photographers in Torontoist's Flickr Pool have been documenting the fickle weather continuously. Now that the summer that set a record for rainfall a full month ago is coming to an end, we're taking a look back at the best photos we've seen of the huge storm clouds, apocalyptic sunsets, double rainbows, and stunning lightning strikes that seem to have dominated the season. Photos above, in chronological order.

Why travel? Especially in a city like Toronto, where we can experience so many cultures just by walking through any of the dozens of ethnically-diverse neighbourhoods? What, at its essence, makes traveling to Italy different than drinking prosecco in Little Italy? What’s the difference, really, between hanging with the Dutch and eating Dutch chocolate ice cream?

Sure, there was one heck of a sunset last night, but check out this crazy photo of a funnel cloud over Trinity Bellwoods spotted by the Post earlier this afternoon. The funnel cloud never quite touched down—just, apparently, slowly collected for about seven minutes, then faded away, likely because it was really intimidated by Igor Kenk's jawline.

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve.

This year to date has seen the wettest June and July ever in Toronto, and we're only a couple of centimetres of rain away from breaking the rain record for the whole summer. That should shut up the "global wetting" skeptics.

It rained a lot yesterday, and it will most likely rain more today. Then it will probably rain some more on Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday. If you're like Torontoist and don't have air conditioning, you are all for more rain. Keep raining, rain! (But no more funnel clouds, please. That kinda freaks us out.)

It's been a particularly tempestuous June this year, with storms rolling in under blue skies and dropping torrents of rain on the city before dissipating or meandering eastwards. There have even been reports of tornadoes touching down in southern Ontario.

Get your bathing suits out people—spring may finally be here, with the temperature expected to hit 9° today and a sub-tropical 15° tomorrow. (Disclaimer: the phrase "get your bathing suits out" is not intended to recommend or endorse the practice of swimming in Lake Ontario. Residents should always consult with their toxicologist before bathing at beaches in or around the GTA.)

There are tons of great shows for all you concertgoers this week, including a particularly time-sensitive one tonight. Apparently a sold-out Wrong Bar for Crystal Castles last Thursday was not enough for the electro-punk duo. A last-minute show has been booked at the Wrong Bar tonight (alongside LA’s Health) before they continue on with their extensive North American tour. With no tickets to be purchased in advance, you better drop what you’re doing and immediately line up to secure a spot inside. Similar high-energy performances will come this week from Montreal’s Think About Life (includes Graham Van Pelt of Miracle Fortress and Magic Weapon’s Jordan Robson-Cramer), who are playing the Drake on Friday, February 29, and MEN (JD Samon and Johanna Fateman of Le Tigre), who are playing Lee’s Palace on Saturday, March 1—both shows will definitely not disappoint.

Forget death and taxes: the one real constant in life is breathy local news coverage of almost any kind of weather. Watching TV news reporters acting bewildered by temperature fluctuations or any amount of precipitation, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the giant dome that has maintained the city's perfect 21° year-round weather for hundreds of years had just broken down, letting sandstorms, radiation, and monsters invade the city from the post-apocalyptic wasteland that surrounds it.

Each week, Torontoist shows off the most interesting, creative, and cool submissions to our Torontoist Flickr Pool. We're especially partial to photos that show our city in a new light, highlight a recent event, and remind us why we live here. Join the Flickr pool and show us what you've got.

It's snowing again! This gives Torontoist yet another opportunity to bust out a pretty picture of streets clogged with snow, and it gives the rest of Canada the opportunity to go, "Hey, how come those Toronto folks can't deal with a little snow ha ha ha don't they have plows?" Then we say, "No, we don't have enough plows, fuckers, because it turns out everybody else is entirely happy to suck money off us and not give us any of it back." Then they punch us, and we punch back, and it ends with black eyes and everybody drunk at the bar... no, wait, that was that wedding we went to last week! Never mind.

The weather continues to suck in Toronto as today promises more snow, sleet, rain and just about every other damn unpleasant thing that can fall out of the sky short of a hail of radioactive meteorites. On the other hand, the central U.S. suffered a rash of tornadoes yesterday that killed at least 27 people, so suck it up and go shovel the walk of the old people down the street.

Sections of downtown core shut down for fear of falling debris. David Miller responds by initiating the "Less Wind Now" campaign, encouraging Ottawa to build "a giant wall" around Toronto to serve as a windbreak.

See, all that snow shovelling was just a waste of time. Toronto is expecting record-breaking heat over the next couple of days, with highs expected to hit 13 degrees. The heat wave is expected to give dumbass radio personalities a chance to say things like, "Hey, this global warming thing is OK by me!"

Attention Wintourites, Olsen fan club members, and other fabulously fur-clad denizens of our fair city:

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.