Greater Montreal under orange alert for freezing rain: Environment Canada

The weather will warm up for Montrealers in the coming days but warmer temperatures will also bring prolonged freezing rain.

Sunday morning begins with steady colder temperatures with a windchill in minus-14 Celsius to minus-19 C range, similar to previous days.

Later in the afternoon and throughout the night on Sunday Montrealers can expect freezing rain, accompanied by ice pellets. Ice accretion amounts of five to 15 millimetres are expected.

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has issued an orange alert for freezing rain for many regions in Quebec.

According to ECCC meteorologist Julien Pellerin, freezing rain is expected to fall mainly between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. in the Greater Montreal area, the Montérégie region, and the Richelieu Valley. The bad weather could cause particularly difficult driving conditions in these areas.

The ice accumulations should then melt by late morning in these areas. In total, about 15 millimeters of freezing rain is expected to fall on the North Shore, Laval, the Lower Laurentians, Saint-Jérôme, and Lachute. Pellerin indicates that this weather system should then give way overnight Monday to Tuesday to snow that will accumulate on top of the ice accumulations, accompanied by gusts of up to 70 kilometres per hour from Abitibi to Montreal.

“Depending on the amount of ice accumulation on infrastructure and branches, we could see an increase in power outages caused by the combination of winds and ice accumulation,” Pellerin explained to The Canadian Press.

The rest of the week to see light rain changing to scattered flurries and one to three centimetres of snow as temperatures cool – feeling like minus-16 C on Tuesday, minus-19 C on Wednesday and hitting minus-20 C on Thursday

— With files from The Canadian Press