A look back to February 2008 when the GTA was snowed in

This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by Chris Mei from The Weather Network, featuring stories about people, communities and events and how weather impacted them.

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On Wednesday, February 6, 2008, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) was hit with a blizzard it hadn't seen in more than 30 years.

It's one of those winter storms where you don't know what to do with the sheer volume of snow.

The snowfall was non-stop for 24 hours; accumulation totals were 25 cm in downtown Toronto, 30 cm in Markham, 33 cm at Pearson Airport, 40-50 cm in Mississaugua, and 50 cm in Milton.

Residents tried to clear the immense amount of snow from their driveways and cars but then were faced with similarly undrivable conditions on the roads.

Cars were colliding with each other and getting stuck in snowbanks.

Toronto dispatched all of its 600 plows, but it took all day and night to get to the 5,000 kilometres of roads.

Myles Currie, the director of transportation for the City of Toronto, said “We’re telling people sometime around between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., we’ll be done all of the local street-plowing."

The poor driving conditions caused delays in paramedic response times. And due to the wintery conditions, calls to paramedics were up by 25 per cent. Some people experienced chest pains from shovelling and others fell due to the icy surfaces.

The Toronto Transit Commission's buses tried to navigate the storm, but could not make it up the snowy hills.

Though the snow was consistent, it was light and fluffy. Usually, a snowstorm will take Hyrdo's wires down with it, but the snow wasn't heavy enough so residents were able to keep their power.

To hear more about the GTA's wintry February, listen to today's episode of "This Day In Weather History."

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