Winter travel advisory ends as Toronto sludges through messy afternoon drive

A winter weather travel advisory has ended for Toronto and the GTA, leaving commuters with a messy afternoon commute after the first significant snowfall of the month.

The snow, which began falling around noon, has tapered off or stopped across much of the region.

Unofficially it is the biggest one-day snowfall of the season with Pearson International Airport measuring 6 cm of snow, just slightly more than the 5.6 cm that was recorded back on Jan. 9.

According to Environment Canada, the Ontario Storm Prediction Centre in North York measured 9 cm of snow.

For February, Toronto has recorded 6.2 cm of snow compared to 27.4 cm in January. So far this season, we have seen 40.8 cm of snowfall when the average is around 109 cm.

The winds will continue to gust throughout the evening, peaking at upwards of 70 km/h around midnight before tapering off to between 30 and 40 km/h on Friday.

Along with the incoming snow, cooler air has taken charge this week. Thursday evening’s windchill will be near -11 overnight. The daytime high on Friday will be around the freezing mark.

Looking ahead to the Family Day weekend, a slight warmup is in store after a cooler Saturday (high of -4 C), with the daytime high getting back above 0 C on Sunday, and a high of 3 C with mainly sunny skies expected on the holiday Monday.

The return to seasonal winter weather follows an unusually warm stretch for the city that saw Toronto break a decades-old temperature record last week.

For all your local weather and details on the extended forecasts, visit here.