Wind in Hamilton leaves thousands without power

Debris wasstrewn over many parts of the city and its outlying areas, including fences, tree branches, and a huge stained glass window from the old James Street Baptist Church as high winds hit the city Monday afternoon and evening.

Environment Canada warned of wind gusts up to 100 km/h.The agency captured wind gust speeds of 94 km/h at the Hamilton Munro International Airport at 6 p.m.

As of 8:30 p.m. approximately 6,800 customers in the Hamilton and St.Catharinesarea were without power.Horizon hadalready restored power to approximately 4,000 customers. "Most of the outages related to the storm are caused by large trees or branches falling on hydro lines or striking transformers/poles," according to the utility's website.

There were are reports of roofs being blown off hangars at the Burlington airpark.

The fierce winds weredriven by the arrival of a deep low pressure system over northeastern Ontario dragging a cold front across Southern Ontario.

• ENVIRONMENT CANADA | Hamilton wind warning

Horizon Utilities issued a tweet reminding people to stay clear of downed power lines and to be prepared in case they lose electricity during the weather event.

Twitter user ScotsmanStuartposted a video of how the wind rearranged his backyard.

The heavy winds were set to calm late Monday evening or Tuesday morning, Environment Canada said.

In its place will be a far colder temperature, with a forecasthigh of 0 C and the possibility of flurries.

That will feel like quite the contrast after Monday, which became the warmest Nov. 24 on record as the temperature reached 16 C.

Previously, the historic high (since 1959)recorded at John C. Munro International Airport was 15.8 C in 1999.

The lowest temperature on record for the airport was in 2005 with -11.1 C.

The record comes about a week after Hamilton set a cold record. On Nov. 18, temperatures dipped to -10.9 C. The previous record was -9.4 C set in 1959.

The next day, the city set a cold record again.