Toronto Canada under water

Has anyone seen the pictures of Toronto , bloody hell I had no idea it was so bad. Very heavy flooding

Some great pics and the story below

https://twitter.com/shephardm/status/354378831206948864/photo/1


http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/dramatic-photos-show-parts-of-toronto-underwater-1.1358806

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nKjGq6YVB8

ardmacha

Thunderstorm flood. Like the Mount Merrion flood of 1963.

Elmer Blooker

that reminds me - I better get out and water me drought stricken garden.

morticia2

Calgary flooded catastrophically last month, to the extent that the city's downtown was under water, the Saddledome stadium (about the same size as the Aviva) was flooded to the 10th row of seats, and 75,000 residents had to be evacuated (out of a population of about 1 million, just over).

There are also reports of mid-northern NY state (3-4 hours drive from Toronto) also flooding.

I'm assuming there's no obvious connection between the floods in Toronto and Calgary.....??? There's about 2000-3000 km between them. But then again....

Any thoughts? MT Cranium?

M.T. Cranium

Well, the steering currents are ideal for heavy rainfall events this summer anywhere close to the U.S.-Canada border because while the jet stream is somewhat weaker than previous years it is also a bit further south, but the other factor is just the random chance aspect that the heaviest storms are happening right over large urban areas instead of where they so often happen, middle of nowhere doing the same sort of damage to a few large farms and maybe a small town which would fail to make the news. I don't think it's any huge atmospheric event, just a series of "bad luck" outcomes for major Canadian cities. I recall seeing very similar rainstorms in my time spent in Ontario (about forty years) and some flooding on a similar scale but it was not in Toronto or any other large city. I'm sure at the same time it will be spun up into "evidence of climate change" but flash flooding in the summer months has been a fairly constant aspect of the weather in these regions for as long as records go back. As far as I can tell from this distance, a lot of the flooding impacts in Toronto were to highways and the transport system and not so much to homes although there were numerous reports of flooded basements and these are sometimes fully inhabited as separate suites rather than just storage areas under a house.

morticia2

Thanks MT!

Yes, I'm well aware of the basement issue; I used to live in Alberta. I can remember thinking basements wouldn't be the greatest idea in Ireland...it appears they're not working so well for Calgary either, unfortunately.

The latest appears to be flooding in Windsor, Ontario....and northern NY state; friends in both places have posted up flooded basement issues on Facebook.

Guess that's three Canadian cities, now. Have we nicked their usual summer weather?

MrDerp

morticia2 wrote: »

Thanks MT!

Yes, I'm well aware of the basement issue; I used to live in Alberta. I can remember thinking basements wouldn't be the greatest idea in Ireland...it appears they're not working so well for Calgary either, unfortunately.

The latest appears to be flooding in Windsor, Ontario....and northern NY state; friends in both places have posted up flooded basement issues on Facebook.

Guess that's three Canadian cities, now. Have we nicked their usual summer weather?

I spent a summer in Vancouver working with a residential drainage company. Most clients were the result of a previously flooded basement. While basements are de-rigeur there (I lived in one at the time), they certainly expect flooding to happen based on the mitigation we built in.