Tornado touches down west of Montreal; thousands without power after violent storms

There were still 4,400 Hydro-Québec customers who did not have power Tuesday afternoon, after the passing of a weather system which was accompanied by heavy rain, violent winds, thunderstorms and even tornado west of Montreal the day before.

Around 6 a.m., 10,582 households were in the dark, affected by the 258 outages in progress. The regions most affected were the Laurentians, the Lanaudière, Estrie and Bas-Saint-Laurent.

Tornado reported north of Rigaud, Quebec at 5:40pm EST on the A-40. Report from Louise Power and Chantal MacKinnon. No damage reported. #qcstorm #onstorm

Believe it was somewhere in the circled area. pic.twitter.com/Sb2F78mgEC

— Connor Mockett (@ConnorMockettWX) May 27, 2024

At the height of the event, Monday evening, more than 70,000 Hydro-Québec customers were without service due to the storms. The state-owned company deployed more than 200 teams on the ground to restore power “as quickly as possible.”

Monday’s meteorological phenomenon was, however, marked by the passage of tornado which caused material damage near Rigaud, in Montérégie.

In images that have circulated on social media, we can clearly see a rotating column moving.

Julie Lemieux, the mayor of Très-Saint-Rédempteur, about eight kilometres southwest of Rigaud, said in a Facebook post that an apparent tornado had toppled trees and knocked out power in the area and Hydro-Québec crews were working to restore it.

The mayor advised residents to remain careful as another storm cell was expected to pass through the region later Monday night.

Asked about this Monday evening, Environment Canada meteorologist Jean-Philippe Bégin clarified that it was too early to confirm the event beyond any doubt, but he added that his team had been able to confirm that these images were indeed taken in this sector, and that “everything points to a tornado.”

Daniel Gélinas was having a coffee in his house in Très-Saint-Rédempteur, near the Ontario-Quebec border, when he noticed swirling clouds and saw part of his deck fly by.

“Grabbed my dog, jumped into the basement, and by the time I hit the floor in the basement and got back up, it was all gone,” he said. “The roar of it just lasted 30 seconds, and then it was quite walked outside. And it’s total devastation.”

The tornado hit and ripped the roof off his home, flattened his garage and scattered his belongings across the street.

He narrowly escaped the tornado’s effects.

“The upstairs roof, when it took off, it did a lot of damage where I was sitting normally,” he said.

Gélinas and his wife Julia Asselstine say they’re still in shock to see their four years of hard work restoring the property blown away.

“Garage, garden, deck of the barn, gone in 30 seconds, literally,” said Asselstine. “We never think that tornadoes would come to this area, but I think as the weather patterns change more and more, we need to consider this in our construction, sadly.”

But they are relieved to be safe, and they say they’ll rebuild.

“Me and my dog, we’re okay. That’s all that matters,” he said. “And the neighbours didn’t get very much of anything either, so happy about that. We just happened to be on the perfect path.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Environment Canada confirmed with CityNews that a Tornado did touch down in Quebec’s Montérégie region.

Begin said May is the beginning of severe weather season in Quebec, with July seeing the most action.

“The busiest months are ahead of us, so June, July, August and September are busier months than May. So it’s only the beginning,” he said.

Quebec sees on average seven tornadoes a year and Monday’s was the first one recorded of the season. Last year, there were six tornadoes that touched down in the province.

A team of researchers from the Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University in Ontario will travel to the site on Tuesday to investigate this event. On the social network X — formerly known as Twitter — The Northern Tornadoes Project indicated that based on video images, photos and radar data, everything suggests that a tornado occurred near Rigaud around 5:45 p.m.

Based on video, photos and radar, a tornado occurred near Rigaud, QC near 5:45 PM EDT. There are reports of damage to the SW of Rigaud approaching the ON border. An NTP damage survey team will begin an investigation tomorrow. Please tag @NTP_Reports with additional info. #meteoQC pic.twitter.com/94RM5EercF

— Northern Tornadoes Project ???????? (@westernuNTP) May 28, 2024

According to the acting director of the Rigaud Fire Department, Guillaume Roy, four houses were damaged, including one which had its roof torn off. Two barns and two grain silos were also damaged.

In one of these facilities, Roy noted that a garage containing chickens has disappeared.

He said Monday evening that fortunately no one was injured.

On its Facebook page, the municipality of Très-Saint-Rédempteur, near Rigaud, added that a residence and agricultural buildings were damaged by the tornado.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews