Winter storm turns to rain, thousands of Quebecers without power

The snow changed into rain and the winter storm that hit Quebec on Tuesday afternoon is now leaving a messy and wet trail behind. Some slippery sidewalks to be aware of and pooling water on roads. You’ll need that umbrella handy.

Tens of thousands of Hydro customers are in the dark after the storm and strong winds and some schools north of Montreal are closed. About 41,000 plus clients without power as of 8 a.m. By 3 p.m. the number was around 19,000.

The Eastern Townships the hardest hit, with more than 32,000 homes off the grid, then Bas-Saint-Laurent and the Montérégie with 1,827 and 1,734 outages, respectively as of 8 a.m.

“We were actually in the Laurentians so coming home took us about two hours and 15 minutes,” said one Montrealer. “It was pretty bad but that’s kind of life.”

Environment Canada’s winter storm warning ended and about 16 cms fell on the Montreal-area. It’s expected to go up to 4°C as it rains. Between 10 and 20 mm of rain is forecasted.

“That made it the snowiest January 9 on record,” said CityNews 680 Chief Meteorologist, Natasha Ramsahai. “If it stayed cold, we would’ve added another 10, 15 or 20 cms on top of that, but then the transition happened just after midnight over to rain and that gave the slushy mess.”

The city of Montreal cleared sidewalks to keep them from becoming slippery and launched their snow removal operation on Wednesday night.

“We also got 12 cms on Sunday, that means there’s more than 20 cms to grab on the curb of the street,” said City of Montreal spokesperson, Philippe Sabourin. “It’s important for the city to grab as much pile of snow in the coming days, in order to deal with the next snow storm that we’re expecting on Saturday.”

A 60 per cent chance of rain or flurries this evening with a wind chill of -12°C overnight.

Another chance of afternoon flurries on Thursday, sun and clouds Friday, and then another possible storm Friday night into Saturday, with 15 to 20 cm of snow expected.

“Montreal, southern Quebec is on the storm track so that next system coming out of the US, it’s going to make a beeline to southern Quebec and of course to Atlantic Canada, eventually and it’s going to be very similar to the one that we just had,” Ramsahai said.

“If we are on the freezing line, you can expect ice pellets and freezing rain to be mixing in with that as well,” said Ramsahai. “This one will probably be a little windier – looks like we could see gusts up to 70 to 80 km/hr.”

Some Montrealers say they prefer winters with more snow than not. “I love snow and I have no problem with it. For January, the weather is still amazing.”

School closures: