More than 255,000 Hydro Quebec customers are in the dark this morning as a significant spring storm rolls through the region. A person moves past cracked and fallen trees following a storm in Montreal, Friday, April 7, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
A spring storm that brought heavy, wet snow across Quebec and Ontario on Thursday knocked out power to tens of thousands of customers and closed schools.
In Quebec, more than 258,000 homes and businesses had no electricity as of 11 a.m. The province’s power utility said the affected area ranged from Gatineau, Que., in the west to Montreal’s suburbs, with strong gusts and broken tree branches cutting power lines.
“Outages are caused by vegetation that are weakened by heavy snow and gusty winds,” Hydro-Québec said on social media, adding that more than 1,000 workers were on the ground to repair infrastructure.
Hydro-Québec didn’t say when power would be restored to some locations where damage was more extensive.
The bad weather led several English-language school boards in Montreal and surrounding areas to shutter schools. Other school boards in southern Quebec closed individual schools that didn’t have electricity.
Between 15 and 25 centimetres of snow was expected to blanket southern Quebec by Thursday evening.
Ontario’s hydro utility said more than 50,000 customers were without power at around 11 a.m. In a statement earlier in the day Hydro One said it had restored power to some 125,000 customers since the storm began.
A handful of flights connecting travellers between Montreal and Toronto were cancelled, Toronto Pearson Airport said.
Special advisories covered areas from southwestern Ontario to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where heavy, wet snow was also expected.
In Nova Scotia’s south, a wind warning was in effect, with gusts forecast to top out around 90 kilometres per hour.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 4, 2024.
