The official wind warning for the Greater Toronto Area ended on Saturday morning, but the region was still hit with damaging gusts of up to 85 kilometres an hour throughout the day.

The winds were part of a winter weather pattern that also forced transport officials to shut down major routes because of whiteout conditions. Highway 400 was also closed because of blowing snow.

"We were getting reports of numerous collisions on the Highway 400 in between Highway 88 and Mapleview, and did have a tractor trailer jack-knife at one point,"

said OPP Sgt. Dave Woodford.

Earlier, the wind caused widespread damage in Toronto and elsewhere. In the city, damaged roofs, downed hydro lines, toppled light poles and shattered windows were reported.

Around the region, about 40,000 people were without power Saturday afternoon because of downed poles, Hydro One said.

People near an Etobicoke strip mall that lost a 23-square-metre section of its roof, for example, described the wind simply peeling it off.

"It's like how you pull on a carpet," one mall employee told CTV Toronto. "It was just the same."

Despite the damage, no one in the mall or the apartments located above was hurt.

The wild winds did become a safety issue, however, after gusts started blowing rocks from the rooftop garden at the downtown Bell Lightbox. Police cordoned the area that is hosting two days of Family Day activities starting Sunday.

Conditions should improve by then, as Environment Canada is calling on Saturday for sustained winds of 50 km/h, gusting to 80 km/h, to diminish to just 30 km/h by afternoon.

Although forecasters expected the system to bring just two centimetres of lake-effect snow, winds created temporary white-out conditions.

Travellers were advised to plan their journeys accordingly.

The Arctic front moving through the region quickly blew away any memories of the record warmth that seized Toronto in recent days.

The daytime high of 10.8 C on Friday beat the record temperature set more than 60 years ago, but was still shy of the 11.3 degree high on Thursday.

The temperature is expected to dip to -11 C overnight Saturday.