2024 was record-setting year for precipitation at Toronto airport: Environment Canada – Toronto [Video]

Environment Canada says two massive summer storms helped catapult Toronto’s Pearson International Airport to its wettest year on record.

Meteorologist Steven Flisfeder says the airport weather station recorded 1,145 millimetres of precipitation in 2024.

That beats out the previous annual record set in 2008 by almost 100 millimetres, and surpasses the 30-year norm by more than 300 millimetres.

Flisfeder says the airport station was hit by once-in-a-century storms in both July and August that each delivered more than 100 millimetres of rain.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada, a national industry association, says that generated more than $1 billion in insured damages in Ontario, making it the second costliest summer for floods in the province after 2013.

Flisfeder says a station in downtown Toronto was only hit hard by the July storm and ended the year with above-normal precipitation totals, but below the annual record.

He says the vast majority of …