‘Massive’ winter storm leaves hundreds of thousands of Quebecers without power before holiday weekend

"It's been naughty," says Montrealer Yahya Hamsas on the winter weather before the holidays, as Quebec was hit by a storm Friday that left hundreds of thousands in the province without power. Pamela Pagano reports.

By News Staff & The Canadian Press

Posted December 23, 2022 8:19 am.

Last Updated December 23, 2022 7:00 pm.

Quebecers woke up to a blanket of snow on Friday morning, and by 3 p.m. over 300,000 people were without power.

Regions most affected by the outages are the Outaouais, Quebec City area and the Laurentians, according to Hydro-Québec’s website.

By 5:30 p.m. on the island of Montreal, over 16,000 customers were knocked off the grid, including in LaSalle and Verdun.

#WATCH: 'Massive' winter storm leaves 200,000 Quebecers without power, school cancelled ahead of holidays.

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The utility says: “Due to the weather forecast for today and tomorrow, the number of customers without power could continue to increase. Our crews are working to restore service as quickly as possible.”

Maxence Huard-Lefebvre, a spokesman for the utility, said about 1,000 workers across the province were repairing power lines. The high winds and low visibility were making the work difficult, he said.

“It’s like a marathon,” Huard-Lefebvre said. “Sometimes it happens that we’ll have a few hours of gusts or a few hours of bad weather; in this case, the weather has been difficult since Thursday evening and will continue to be so for several more hours, so there will still be gusts of wind this evening, tonight and even tomorrow.”

The Quebec City area is the most affected part of the province, he said, “mainly because of the very violent wind gusts that were blowing since this morning — wind gusts at over 100 kilometres per hour,” he said.

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Mixed bag of weather

At 12:30 p.m., Environment Canada issued a wind warning. Earlier on it warned of a flash freeze, as temperatures fell rapidly. Ponding water, slush, and any falling precipitation will freeze as the temperature drops.

They caution that southwesterly winds will reach up to 90 km/h late in the afternoon. High winds may toss loose objects or cause tree branches to break.

The areas under effect are: Châteauguay – La Prairie, Laval, Longueuil – Varennes, Montreal.

The weather agency initially issued a snowfall warning, but that ended around 9 a.m., as snow changed over to rain in the morning, with a risk of freezing rain during the transition.

Rainfall amount 15 to 25 mm. Wind northeast 40 km/h gusting to 70 becoming southwest 50 gusting to 80 in the afternoon. High of 5. Low of -5.

“We may only see one of these storms every five or 10 years,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Mitch Meredith about the breadth of the weather system. “I’ve only seen a couple of storms like this in the last 20 years.”

#WATCH: “It’s sort of like the nightmare before Christmas,” says @environmentca’s senior climatologist, David Phillips, on the “massive” winter storm system heading for Quebec, expected to hamper traveling around during the busy holiday weekend.

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“You’re going to have an instant flash freeze and any rain that occurs during Friday because of those warm temperatures are going to freeze and then you’re going to have snow falling on top of it,” said senior climatologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada, David Phillips. “So those surfaces are going to be slick and treacherous and icy and really dangerous.”

Driving conditions difficult

“The roads are very messy right now,” said David Marcille of CAA-Québec. “If you can avoid driving, this is always the best the best tip we give. However, if you do have to hit the roads today, please be patient. There’s no rush. Just adjust your your driving to this snowstorm.”

Some tips CAA-Québec gives to keep safe while driving:

Keep a longer distance between the cars in front of you
Reduce your speed
Clear the snow off your car well
Clean wipers
Make sure car batter is working at full capacity
If you lose traction while driving: do not panic; don’t make abrupt movements; hold your steering wheel tightly and slowly release the gas, align your vision with where you want the car to go

Travel plans affected

Late Thursday, WestJet proactively cancelled flights at airports in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia as storm systems bear down on the regions.

The storm upended holiday travel plans for thousands of people as airlines pre-emptively cancelled flights, with more disruptions expected.

Rob Milton, travelling with his wife, said his flight to Quebec was cancelled Friday morning out of Toronto’s Pearson airport, throwing a major wrench in the couple’s plans to celebrate Christmas in Quebec City.

“We had a hotel in Quebec booked; we had to cancel it. We had restaurants; we had to cancel those. We had the whole weekend planned,” he said at the airport.