leoline

How seriously should I take all that is said about the weather in Toronto?

Vancouverites are doing their best to dissuade me from coming.

Having lived for six years in Vancouver I just could not get used to the dull, grey skies and the incessant rain from October/November to April/May and sometimes beyond.

Should I fear the extreme cold/snow in the winter and the extreme hot/humid summers?

Could I get used to it?

I won't confess to my preferences yet.

Leo

Elaine B.

Hi there

the thing I like about winters here in Toronto at least compared to the UK is it may be cold but a lot of the time the sun shines.

Souvenir

Summer in TO/the GTA can get very hot and humid, it's true. Mind you, the same can be said for Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec etc. The really crap bit about Summer in TO is the air quality. It can get very bad indeed, to the extent that people with respiratory problems are advised to stay indoors.

It does snow in Toronto but no more than most other places in Canada (probably less than most).

Downtown TO, when the wind is blowing off the lake, is the coldest place on earth in Winter. That is largely to do with the way it is built.

The differences in weather in TO and Vancouver are perhaps not as great as you might think. Last year, TO got 834mm of rain; Vancouver got 1175mm. More, yes, but we're not talking orders of magnitude. Vancouver actually got more snow than TO (it was an exceptional year, admittedly).

Londonuck

As an ex-Vancouverite i have to say the 6c on Yonge that day, with the worst hangover, was so cold. I thought it was well below zero. But for nightlife it kicks the rz off Vancouver.

iaink

No, you shouldnt. 5 million people from all around the world seem to survive OK.

If its too humid and hot in the summer, find a beach, or some A/C. Im missing it already.

It may be a bit snowy in the winter, but at least the sun shines most of the time, and the snow itself is usually only an inconvenience for a few hours, or a day at a time at most. Major snowfall is quite rare. Few things are more fun than skating in the sun in your back yard with your kids on a rink you made yourself...although now its really only cold enough for about a month or 6 weeks of good skating.

I guess I got used to it, I love the 4 distinct seasons, although in an ideal world I could live with a month less winter.

geo4

It's really not that bad- and I take TTC to work!!

It's only a few days in the year when it's so cold you consider ending it all, and even that feeling soon passes.

As for the Summer- I really didn't notice most of the time as I'm sat here in my air conditioned Ivory Tower for five out of seven days. For the other two I was just grateful not to be stuck back in the UK under a grey ceiling with about 2Km of visibility. It's truly beautiful here when it is about minus 20 with an unlimited ceiling and upwards of 26 Km of visibility.

Try it, you might like it!

Shame I can't find a decent sandwich....

dbd33

I think this is a hareng rouge. The major feature of the winter is that whenever one can go outside it's dark. Driving to and from work happens in the dark, office jobs are indoors so one has a shot at seeing natural light, sunny or not, two days a week. Inevitably they're not the sunny days.

In Toronto the cold and snow are very rarely a factor in everyday life but the salt and the dirt make winter miserable, it's hard to see out of the car windows, difficult to clean them in the dark and, anyway, more salt and dirt is coming as soon as you do clean them. If you take transit the passing cars blast you with waves of grey slush and, if you walk, you're at risk from the uncleared sidewalks of Lexus owners.

The summer, otoh, is nice and warm and, if you're a smoker, the air really isn't any worse to breathe than the smoke from your cigarettes.

dbd33

wtf?

Toronto's sky is a big brown lump. Try looking at it from the Niagara Escarpment, that's only about 40 miles away and it's (relatively) high up but, even on the clearer nights, the CNN tower is hardly visible through the smog. Even if you go out to the island in mid-winter you can hardly make out a star. The plus side is that the crust over the city keeps it warm but "beautiful"? Perhaps if you come from Birmingham.

iaink

I dunno about you but I have a nice window... I can see its sunny out, and at the weekends it usually is too....as I look out at it from the fire side.

Most of torontos crappy summer air seems to drift down the lake to us, but its still OK nearly all the time unless you have some sort of medical condition , in which case UK city air is probably not doing you any favours either. We can certainly see the stars out here in the boonies. I wouldnt choose to live in the GTA, but thats to do with population density and property prices, not climate.

geo4

Yes the smog is there. But the Winter just gone, many days had 26 Km of visibility and an unlimited ceiling. I'll go with the Weather channel and what I see with my own eyes as opposed to some guy on a message board.

dbd33

<walks back from lobby>

Grey out there. Light snow. I see no sun.

dbd33

See, the place is indefensible. The season just gone was Summer but without reference to the television, it's indistinguishable from Winter.

geo4

....

iaink

Not today...just "in general"

dbd33

Seriously, I think a problem with Winter here is a tendency to sickness due to lack of sunlight. I don't normally expect to know what the weather is on weekdays as it doesn't really affect me, I drive in the dark and work in artificial light; I suspect this typical of white collar and factory workers.