Lake Enhanced System and Squalls To Bring Up to 25cm of Snow to Southern Ontario by Thursday; Strong Wind Gusts Possible on Wednesday

It has been a fairly slow start to 2022 across Southern Ontario when it comes to active weather aside from the snow some areas got over the weekend. However, that is about to change as a system will drop through Southern Ontario starting Wednesday and be accompanied by some lake enhancement around Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. The system will also bring some strong to damaging wind gusts during the day on Wednesday ranging from 60-80km/h inland and up to 90-95km/h for areas northeast of Lake Ontario and Erie. While this shouldn’t be overly significant compared to previous wind storms, it could still lead to some localized power outages especially for those in Prince Edward County and the Niagara region.

We expect the snow to start around Lake Huron and Georgian Bay starting Wednesday morning and occasionally bring light snow to areas outside of the snowbelt during the day on Wednesday. This system will be fairly lacking when it comes to moisture, but it will be helped by Lake Huron and Georgian Bay where lake enhancement will boost totals. By the end of Wednesday, the system will have moved out of our region although lake effect snow will continue with a southwesterly flow off Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. We may even see some brief heavy snowfall through the Niagara region and Prince Edward County from the lakes late Wednesday and into Thursday. Lake effect snow will linger into Thursday morning and afternoon mainly around Lake Huron.

The accumulation with this system will be highly variable due to the lake enhancement factor which tends to result in highly localized significant snowfall totals while others see barely anything. At this point, we believe locations east of Lake Huron and up along the northeastern shoreline of Georgian Bay could see up to 25cm of snow by Thursday. We want to make it clear that not everyone will see 25cm in that zone. This will be a combination of lake enhancement from the system on Wednesday and snow squalls overnight into Thursday. It’s quite possible that many areas miss out on the lake effect activity and only see around 5cm of accumulation since there’s a lot of factors at play with this event that needs to align.

Further inland to the east of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, we’re looking at up to 15cm of snow by the end of Thursday. This also includes the Niagara and Prince Edward County regions that could see a quick 5-10cm from lake effect snow late Wednesday. The rest of Southern Ontario can expect up to 5cm with mainly just occasional light snow or flurries over the next 2 days, but nothing too persistent.

Strong wind gusts will develop during the day on Wednesday and continue into the evening. The strongest gusts will be found along the northeastern shoreline of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. This includes Port Colborne, Fort Erie and Prince Edward County where gusts may approach or exceed the 90km/h mark. The rest of the shoreline can expect gusts ranging from 70-90km/h including the higher elevations of the Dundalk Highlands. Due to the wind coming out of the southwest, we don’t expect the Lake Huron shoreline to be significantly affected with gusts ranging from 70-85km/h. The gusts will be slightly weaker as we go further inland with most locations seeing 60-75km/h wind gusts. Those in Central Ontario away from Georgian Bay will experience gusts below 60km/h.