This season has been the story of tremendous amounts of lake-effect snow hitting Ontario’s snowbelt regions. But where is the snow for major cities across Ontario, including the city of Toronto?
On average, the month of January is the snowiest month of the year for Toronto, but this winter season we have yet to see 10 cm of snow in the city.
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The largest single-day snowfall at Toronto-Pearson Airport so far for this winter season was 5.2 cm of snow which occurred on Jan. 10, 2025. Even the largest two-day snowfall event only produced a mere 9.2 cm.
Toronto Latest 10cm of Snow
The latest time in recent memory we saw a snowfall that produced over 10 cm of snow was Mar. 22, 2024. If we head farther back, the latest date was April 3, 2016 for the city of Toronto.
Regions like northern Ontario and cottage country typically see large snowfalls earlier in the year with Pacific systems and Alberta clippers.
The region that has seen the most snow in the entire province is the snowbelt, which has been the hotspot for a deep snowpack due to a mildly consistent northwesterly flow over the warm, open Great Lakes, allowing for lake-effect snow events.
Toronto Earliest 5cm 10 cm snowfalls
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Now the question is: when will the Greater Toronto Area see a major snowstorm that could dump at least 10 cm of snow?
As we head into the next two weeks of January, cross-polar flow will dominate and allow frigid Arctic air to flow from the Territories to the eastern Prairies, into Eastern Canada, and even parts of the southern United States.
Upper Level Pattern January 21
We may get an occasional clipper system across the Great Lakes region, but those don’t produce heavy snowfalls across Ontario due to their connection with a dry polar airmass. We need the jet stream to align with the formation of Colorado lows or Texas lows, which pull their moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.
Colorado Texas Low Storm Track
The track of these systems has to be just right for a snow event. If not, we could see mixed precipitation or even rainfall events like we experienced at the end of November 2024.
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