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The skies of Southern Ontario were as bright as day at times on Wednesday evening as thunderstorms swept through the region, bringing with them pouring rain and causing Environment Canada to issue numerous tornado warnings.

The storm passed Toronto shortly after 11 p.m., heading east up the Lake Ontario shoreline towards Belleville. Storms also continued to pound a diagonal band from Windsor along Lake Erie and into the Niagara Peninsula.

While funnel clouds were spotted in some parts of the province, none were immediately confirmed as tornadoes. Some spots were hit with power outages, ranging from a handful of homes affected to over 1,000.

Toronto and its suburbs saw a wild light show, with lightning flashes every second or so and window-rattling thunder that set off car alarms.

The Canadian National Exhibition closed its midway early and stopped admitting people roughly two hours ahead of schedule as a precaution.

A Toronto FC soccer match at BMO Field on the CNE grounds was postponed twice out of fear of a lightning strike and rain. The game was later abandoned and will be replayed Thursday morning. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, went ahead with their baseball game under the closed dome of the Rogers Centre.

The province was hypervigilant Wednesday following a tornado that struck the town of Goderich on Lake Huron over the weekend, devastating the town centre.

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