More storms, snow on the way for southern Ontario

The mild weather in southern Ontario turned wet and wild yesterday as thunderstorms swept through the region, bringing heavy rain, lightning and even hail to some areas.

Ontario Hydro had reported several small power outages across southwest Ontario, pictures of pea-sized hail showed up on Twitter, and one woman even had a close call last night as a bolt of lightning struck her home just as she was taking out the garbage.

[ Related: Lightning strike damages north Toronto house ]

"The whole ground shook," said Natalie Sakin, according to CBC News. "I was hit with this pressure ... it was like this wall of pressure, my ears blew and the garage fell off the hinges. It was just a huge bang."

According to the CBC News article, the lightning strike damaged windows in Sakin's home and blew the transformer, but fortunately no one was injured.

An Environment Canada special weather statement is attributing last night's storms to "a series of low pressure systems" that are expected to drop a total of 20 to 50 millimetres of rainfall by late Wedneday, with the highest amounts over southwestern Ontario.

[ More Geekquinox: Record-breaking chills for central AB and SK ]

More precipitation is expected to fall on Thursday and Friday as well, but rather than just rain, this could be a mix of rain, snow, ice pellets and freezing rain, due to cold air pushing in from the prairies.

(Images courtesy: Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press and Environment Canada)

Geek out with the latest in science and weather.
Follow @ygeekquinox on Twitter!