Toronto | DVP Reopens For Morning Commute After Torrential Rainfall And Flood 

Major flooding hit the Toronto area Tuesday leaving tens of thousands of people without power after an intense storm passed through portions of southern Ontario.

Toronto Hydro said at the peak about 167,000 people had lost power. As of Wednesday morning, 3,300 customers were still in the dark.

A spokesperson for Toronto Hydro said its believed the outages were due to flooding at a Hydro One transmission station.

Lake Shore Boulevard also flooded, prompting a closure from British Columbia Road to Strachan Avenue.

Toronto rapper Drake posted on Instagram a video of what appears to be yellow-brown coloured water rushing inside of his home with the caption “This better be Espresso Martini.”

Toronto Pearson Airport said 97.8 mm fell there on Tuesday, making it the fifth rainiest day on record and the highest rainfall in a single day since July 8, 2013.

“During a 10-minute span, we recorded 26 mm of rain,” a post from the airport on X said.

Global News meteorologist Ross Hull said it appears to be the most rain that has fallen in a single day at Pearson Airport in over 10 years since that significant flooding event that occurred on July 8, 2013, when 126 mm fell.

However, Tuesday’s rainfall was the wettest on record for a July 16 in Toronto.

Hull said what occurred from a meteorological perspective was the “perfect storm.”

Much of southern Ontario was hit by torrential downpours for the second straight day with an already saturated ground from heavy rain on Monday.

“By Tuesday, the ground was saturated and a line of training storms started forming over the GTA,” Hull said.

“These storms move continually over an area as if on a track — one moves in then quickly is followed by another one. These can often be enhanced by the lake breezes off of Lake Ontario which provides more lift.”

Hull said from around 9 a.m. to just after 12 p.m., a three hour window, more than a month’s worth of rain was dropped over the area.

With the above-normal rain already this month, the sewers and drains couldn’t handle the extra water, he said.

“The saturated ground and infrastructure could not handle it — not to mention all that additional water making its way into the watersheds in a short amount of time leading to rivers and creeks overflowing their banks,” Hull said.

Meanwhile, the City of Toronto tells Global News that it is too early to give firm estimates on clean-up costs or the scope of damage.

“The focus has been on bringing critical infrastructure, like roadways and transit, back online,” the city said. “More updates and information will be available as we examine what was affected and investigate further.”