GTA wakes up to messy Friday morning commute

The Extreme Weather Centre is open — full list of bus cancellations and school closures in the GTA can be found here.

GTA residents are waking up to significant snow on Friday morning after a wild couple of days of weather that included record warmth, significant rainfall and flooding.

The snow had winded down for most of the region by the early morning on Friday but the storm left behind up to 20 centimetres in some areas — making for a messy morning commute.

This storm is out of the way for #Toronto GTA. Snowfall warning ENDED for the area 6:05am Friday. Another system moves in but not much in the way of accumulation overnight/Sat. Sunshine Sunday then back to flurries/showers for Family Day Mon. Active storm track for rest of Feb!

— Jill Taylor (@JillTaylorCity) February 18, 2022

Several collisions causing delays have been reported around major highways across the GTA.

“As traffic volume increases I expect we are going to see more problems,” said OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt. “There is still a lot of snow on the roads.”

A transport truck went into the ditch on the westbound 401 near Dixon Road, wrapping around one of the overhead sign posts.

A tractor trailer has gone thru guardrail and partially off the highway on Westbound 401 at Dixon/Martingrove exit. Major routes have been plowed but are slippery. GO SLOW IN SNOW! Listen to Citynews680 for storm updates and traffic updates on the 1’s pic.twitter.com/RUnPgwt81Z

— carl hanstke (@carlCityNews) February 18, 2022

The TTC is warning of several “major delays” due to the weather conditions and GO transit says Long Branch GO station has been temporarily closed on Friday for the second straight morning

The City of Toronto deployed salt trucks as the rain changed to freezing rain late on Wednesday. The city said they would deploy plows as soon as snow accumulation reached 2.5 centimetres on expressways and five centimetres on major roads and eight centimetres on local roads. Sidewalk and bike lane plows will be deployed at two centimetres of snow accumulation.

https://twitter.com/TO_WinterOps/status/1494635365206003736

Schools in Halton, Peel and Durham regions are closed for the day and buses are cancelled. Buses are running and schools are open in York Region. Schools in the Toronto public and catholic boards have a PA day on Friday.

York University says they will be resuming operation on Friday after closing for the inclement weather on Thursday.

Flooding as a result of Thursday’s storm has forced hundreds of residents of a Brampton neighbourhood to evacuate their homes.