The blustery weather of the last two days has pushed Ontario's wind-power output into record territory.

As of 9 p.m. Tuesday, the province hit an all-time high for hourly wind power output, cranking out 1,056 megawatts of electricity.

That is normally the amount of electricity generated by two nuclear reactor units at the Pickering generating station, which produce 515 megawatts at any given time. The province's wind output also trumped its coal-fired electricity output on Monday.

Ontario's wind output is usually negligible, reported CTV Toronto's Paul Bliss.

Environment Canada started the day with wind warnings for most of most of southern Ontario

The warning for the GTA was lifted at 3:17 p.m. on Wednesday. At 4 p.m., Environment Canada reported wind speeds of 48 kilometres per hour, with busts to 61 km/h.

The relatively balmy temperature of 19 degrees Celsius meant some Toronto windsurfing enthusiasts hit the water on Wednesday afternoon.

Environment Canada maintained its warnings for:

  • the Bruce peninsula
  • Dufferin-Innisfil
  • Barrie-Orillia-Midland
  • Parry Sound-Muskoka
  • Burk's Falls-Bayfield Inlet

However, it did say the winds should die down by early evening.

The fierce gusts had been expected to reach 90 kilometres per hour. They did hit northwestern Ontario and were expected to move east and south throughout Wednesday.

The GTA and southwestern Ontario were warned they could see winds of 60 km/h gusting to 90 km/h.

George Kournouis, the host of "Angry Planet," says Ontario's strong winds were caused by a "weather bomb."

"A weather bomb is not actually a type of weather; it is a description of how deep an area of low pressure strengthens," Kournouis told CTV's Canada AM.

When a low pressure area strengthens suddenly and intensely, meteorologists stamp it as a weather bomb.

The environmental anomaly is also responsible for snowfall in Saskatchewan and tornados across parts of the United States.

The weather system was so large it twisted wind in the prairies to come from the north.

"It is unusual, in that this is probably one of the strongest pressure systems that has ever gone through North America," Kournouis said.

He added that the storm is stronger than the one that sunk the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975 and the Great Blizzard of 1978 that crushed the Great Lakes area.

"If this had happened over the waters of the Caribbean, it would have been a Category 2 or 3 hurricane," Kournouis said.

On Tuesday, high winds and rain caused spots of power outages across the province.

With files from CTV Toronto's Paul Bliss and The Canadian Press