How do you rate the Toronto weather? (Only answer if you have lived in Toronto for atleast 1 year) (tornadoes, live in)

[breakaway]

How would you rate Toronto's weather from your personal experience?

[lucknow]

It's very much what is expected in it's latitude and it's proximity to a large body of water. I personally like cool weather so the weather in southern On suits me fine from April to June and from mid August to November. It's hot in the middle of the summer and it can be pretty cold in mid winter.

[Stumbler.]

I've lived in Toronto more or less my whole life (so I haven't much to compare it to, experience-wise). I wouldn't say it's barely tolerable or almost perfect but in between, but I voted the former since I don't really like a long winter in general. I like the summers, as it is rarely too hot for me (only a few days really go into the 30s C).

I would like our summer (times when daily maxes go at or above low to mid 20s C) to last maybe one month more into spring and one month more into fall and I'd find the climate excellent!

[KevK]

I have never lived there but I have been there enough that I can tell you the winter there is sheer hell on earth. I lived in Chicago for many years and I thought that was cold until I spent a December in Toronto. Not only is it bone chilling cold but there is snow and ice all over everything! I don't know how people live in that. I think if not for Tim Horton's, people there would do mass suicides!

[TightButLoose]

The weather in Toronto is great. If you like all four seaons, Toronto's got them. But what I really like about Toronto weather, winters aren't nearly as bad you might think considering Toronto lies beside Lake Ontario. We don't get anything near the kind of snow that the Buffalo area gets. For instance last year, Toronto residents who had driveways wouldn't have even had to shovel their driveways the snow was so light.

Summers can get very hot, but hey, that's summer for ya.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, Toronto can get hit heavily with snow, but snow clearing in the Toronto area is so good, that's arterial roads are cleaned up in no time. Even residental streets get pretty fast attention and sidewalks are ploughed too. One thing for sure, though, snow or no snow, the air temperature in Toronto can be frigid a lot of the time during winter. No way around that.

[kkgg7]

From a scale of 1-10 where 10 is the best, I will give Toronto a 5. (Los Angeles gets a 8)
If someday I need to move away, one reason would be the long winter, the other being bad transit.
BTW, KevK, is Toronto so much worse than Chicago?

[DannyCrane]

Toronto is cold but you can get by when you layer up. Besides it is only January and February that are brutally cold. The summers are wonderful. You also get to experience 4 season weather. Ideally, I would live in Toronto for the rest of the year but go on vacation for the whole of January and February.

[memph]

I'm from Toronto and think the weather is pretty good. The weather from May to October is really nice imo.

I actually like the winters, it's not like the Canadian Prairies where you can get temperatures in the -30s (celcius). It rarely goes below -10C in Toronto. If you dress up properly, I find that pretty tolerable. Plus I think the snow looks nice. Snow clearing is great too, to the point where I wouldn't mind having less of it, with the ploughs dumping huge amounts of salt on roads and tearing up lawns around sidewalks. At least in my suburb. I like snow, so I actually prefer Jan-Feb to Nov/Dec and Mar/Apr when it's often gloomy, rainy, slushy and too cold for summer activities.

There's also relatively little extreme weather. I can only remember 2 tornadoes in the area and they were both small (F0 and F2). The largest hail I saw was actually this summer, about the size of cherries, the next biggest was just pea sized. We don't get hurricanes and the strongest wind gust was probably around 100km/h. I can't remember any serious flooding in the 20 years I've lived here, or any truly damaging ice storms (the 1998 ice storm didn't really affect Toronto). There was one big snowstorm in the late 90s, but otherwise there hasn't been more than 50cm on the ground or more than 40cm in one snowfall. It's not overly rainy like the Northwest or NFDL, but there is enough rain for the vegetation to be green. There's much fewer heat waves than in much of the U.S. which I think is a big plus since you can't make 40C tolerable by changing the amount of layers you're wearing. The temperature swings aren't nearly as bad as in say, Alberta, where it can be summer one day and winter the next.

I guess it depends on what you dislike most. Some places get too much rain, some places are too hot, some places are too cold, some place get too much extreme weather. I don't think there are any cities in North America that don't have one of those, although NorCal comes close (foggy summers). And I think there are definitely places with worse weather (Great Plains and probably Midwest). Outside of the cold/snow, I think the other thing people might dislike about Toronto is that we don't get too much sunshine from October to March (3.6hrs/day avg).

If you don't like snow, heat waves and cold weather, the best areas are near the lake between downtown and Niagara on the Lake, the moderating effect of lake Ontario can be quite significant. I live in Southern Oakville and if there's a big heat wave, it will typically be around 35C about 5km from the lake, but only 30C within 1-2km of the lake. Winters are also warmer, which means less snow.

[belmont22]

How cold does the winter feel, overall? Brutal or pretty mild?

[Scusi]

Jan and feb are brutal for the most part. But anytime weather is below freezing and there's wind it's horrible no matter where you are.