Thousands still without power as strong winds cause widespread outages

Over 10,000 Ontarians are still without power as strong winds caused by a cold front swept through southern and eastern Ontario on Saturday.

Wind warnings have officially ended for all areas affected including for Toronto and the GTA.

Sustained winds between 25 and 50 km/h and as high as 90 km/h on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario were expected throughout the afternoon before easing by Saturday night.

Peter Kimbell, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the highest wind gust recorded so far was in Port Colborne, on the shores of Lake Erie, where wind speeds reached as high as 100 kilometres per hour. Wind speeds of 96 km/h were also recorded in Windsor.

The national weather service says the conditions were relatively short-lived, and that areas battered by high winds should already be seeing local improvement.

“The peak winds were relatively brief, maybe an hour,” said Kimbell.

Hydro One said they anticipate customers in some areas will be without power overnight. Currently, their online outage map shows 200 outages affecting over 12,000 customers.

Crews have restored power to more than 60,000 customers after outages caused by at least 31 broken poles, downed power lines along with trees and large branches causing outages.

Toronto Hydro was showing sporadic outages across the city with the largest affecting upwards of 5,000 customers in the southern portion of the downtown core, but power was restored just before 3 p.m.

One lane along Yonge Street at Shuter Street was also closed along with pedestrian traffic on the west side of Yonge Street due to a sign falling and pieces of metal.