Environment Canada issued a special weather statement ahead of the summer storm, warning of the potential for 50 to 100 millimetres of rain Tuesday evening.
According to a preliminary weather summary issued by Environment Canada on Wednesday after 12:30 a.m., the heaviest rain hit Highways 400 and 401, the area near Allen Road, the downtown core and the Toronto Islands.
The weather agency said approximately 50 to 75 millimetres of rain fell in the span of two to three hours across the area. Localized areas may have experienced higher amounts of rainfall. At the peak of the storm, nearly 16,000 customers were without power, according to Toronto Hydro.
Police and fire crews responded to several calls of submerged vehicles while two men had to be rescued from an elevator in a commercial building in the city's north end.
Toronto police said two people called 911 after 10:50 p.m. to report that they were trapped in an elevator in the basement as water began to fill it.
"As the water was rising very, very quickly, they only had about a foot of airspace left inside the elevator and it was completely closed, so officers pried the elevator open and rescued the two men," spokesperson Katrina Arrogante told Global News.
She said the officers had to find a crowbar and swim through the basement to access the elevator.
Photos from around the city show the extent of the flooding and its aftermath. Take a look.
Comment: Toronto's topography is full of hills and valleys that were carved out during the last ice-age, and a number of tributaries run through the city that empty into Lake Ontario. And because it's only 76 metres above sea level, this essentially means Toronto acts as a catch-basin of sorts. As we continue to see more extreme weather and 'sheets of rain' downpours, this could spell big trouble for the people who live in the largest and densest metropolitan area in all of Canada.