Record setting rainfall in Toronto
Posted Jul 9, 2013 10:54:39 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It was a record setting day in Toronto that saw 126 mm of rain fall in just a few short hours.
Senior Climatologist with Environment Canada Dave Phillips tells 570’s Gary Doyle show not only did that set a single day rainfall record in Toronto, but compared to other storms we’ve seen in Ontario, all this rain fell in the span of about 3 hours, “Hurricane Hazel, 121 mm in 24 hours and some of the other events, 10, 15, 16 hours of rain to produce those kinds of heavy gushes of water.”
The wettest moment ever in Ontario saw 182 mm of rain fall in Harrow in 1991.
Phillips says that storm did some damage to farm fields, but nothing major, and it fell over 15 hours. He adds it just goes to show the magnitude of this storm over such a short period of time, “I mean you can’t fault the city for having deteriorating infrastructure. I mean you would not build an infrastructure to stand this kind of event. You just have to accept the fact that occasionally you’re going to get flooded out. But in this one, you don’t expect the full deck to be stacked against you.”
In addition to getting more rain in a shorter amount of time, the other difference with this storm compared to Hurricane Hazel is 81 people died in the 1954 storm, “Back in Hazel’s time, people went to bed that night not even thinking about it being an issue. Now it’s wall-to-wall coverage and the media does a really good service in providing updates and advice to people, and we’re also more attuned to knowing what to do in these kinds of situations.”
