Drought did not completely relent across much of southern Ontario in January, but it did improve from the previous month.
As can be seen on the January 2026 and December 2025 maps below, the most notable change in January (seen on left) was the contraction in a large area of moderate drought that extended all the way from Windsor to north of Waterloo. At the same, two pockets of severe drought – the first south of Sarnia, and the second around the London, St. Thomas, Woodstock area – were downgraded to moderate drought.
On the eastern side of the province, a large area of severe drought north of Peterborough got smaller in January, while moderate drought along the eastern half of Lake Ontario was downgraded to abnormally dry.
Parts of Ontario were buried by heavy snow in January, including a late-month event that brought 46 centimetres to Toronto’s Pearson Airport – the highest daily snowfall since records began in 1937. With the help of that storm, January was also the snowiest month on record for the airport.
North of Toronto, Barrie had already received about 300 centimetres or 9.5 feet of snow from Nov. 1 to the end of January.
