02/01/2026
After 300cm of snow in the last month, this is very good news 🙂
And that’s (mostly) a wrap on significant snow squalls this season! 😮💨
Finally some good news for our friends in the snowbelt. Georgian Bay is now basically fully frozen over, with the last remaining pockets of open water in the southwest freezing up over the past few days. As Alannah reported earlier this week, Lake Erie has already basically frozen over, sitting at around 95% ice coverage.
Lake Huron isn’t too far behind either. Only a small section in the middle of the lake remains open, and that’s shrinking quickly as the recent stretch of extreme cold continues to rapidly expand ice coverage. The combined ice coverage for Lake Huron and Georgian Bay has hit 69% which is well above the average of 39% for this time of the year!
Because of this, it’s very unlikely we’ll see any significant lake effect snow events for the rest of the winter in Southern Ontario. We could still see some minor lake effect activity over the next week or two, but with far less open water to pull moisture from, any snow that does develop will be weaker and much more disorganized.
Lake Ontario does remain open, but we rarely see true lake effect snow on our side of the border. Most impacts there are limited to lake enhancement around the Golden Horseshoe, along with the occasional squall that manages to sneak north of the border into Prince Edward County and the Kingston area.
Those in Simcoe County, Muskoka and Parry Sound can rest easy now that Georgian Bay has mostly frozen over. That’s a big relief for places like Barrie, which has picked up over 300cm of snow over the winter from relentless snow squalls. That prolonged stretch even led to the city breaking its record for the longest period under a significant weather event declaration.
With lake effect season winding down, any additional snowfall we see for the rest of the winter should mainly come from passing systems, which are typically much more manageable than prolonged snow squalls that can dump huge amounts of snow in a short period of time.
Are you excited to see the squalls come to an end, or are you still hoping for more snow?
- Brennen
Source: glicetracker (link in comments)
