People in the eastern half of Canada are digging out after another monster storm dumped huge amounts of snow for the second time in recent days, with parts of Quebec walloped the hardest.
Montreal and Laval, Que., reported about 40 centimetres of snow had dropped as of 1 a.m. ET Monday, with 35 centimetres accumulating in the Eastern Townships.
In Montreal, snow is expected to continue into Monday. Environment Canada has issued a blizzard warning for much of southern and central Quebec along the St. Lawrence as well as the Gaspé Peninsula.
Montreal’s city spokesperson Philippe Sabourin said it’ll take days before plows can clear 11,000 kilometres of streets. Crews will start by pushing the snow out of the way of traffic.
“We will come back to grab those piles of snow. For sure it’s going to take weeks to complete the loading operation, so everyone will have to be patient,” he said.
English school boards and French-language school service centres in the Greater Montreal area announced that classes would be cancelled at primary and high schools on Monday due to snow.
Police have been urging motorists to avoid non-essential travel. Sabourin advised people to work from home if they can on Monday because the province does not observe a public holiday like some other provinces.
Ontario is marking Family Day, so schools and many businesses are scheduled to remain closed and lighter traffic is expected.
Environment Canada had issued its winter storm warning for across southern Ontario and Quebec on Saturday.
By Sunday, the storm was bearing down on the two provinces for the second wintry strike since Thursday, when between 20 and 40 centimetres of snow or more fell, depending on the region.
“The situation has tempered down in southern Ontario, so at least there is some relief for those regions,” said Jean-Philippe Begin, warning preparedness meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada.
“But about 25 centimetres or 25 to 30 centimetres fell in the Greater Toronto Area.”
Similar conditions were felt in southeastern Ontario, with more than 30 centimetres of snow blanketing the Ottawa area. To the west of Toronto, Hamilton received 32 centimetres of snow, Environment Canada said.
Toronto snow plow driver Zach McLeod said clearing downtown streets will be challenging.
After a midweek storm brought 40 centimetres of snow, the city got hit with another 26 centimetres, and it’s all got to go somewhere.
“The snow is so much that downtown there really aren’t a lot of places to put the snow,” McLeod said.
Vincent Sferrazza, Toronto’s director of operations and maintenance for transportation services, said the priority is to clear the roads, and then workers will come back to remove the massive piles, put them in dump trucks and transport them to various storage sites across the city.
For motorists, conditions rapidly deteriorated in the two provinces on Sunday. In Quebec, provincial police reported a major collision on Highway 20 near Drummondville, about 90 kilometres northeast of Montreal. Twenty vehicles were involved including transport trucks, but no injuries were reported.
Flights were cancelled or delayed at Toronto Pearson International Airport and Montreal-Trudeau International Airport, with officials warning travellers to check their flight status before heading to the airport.
Ontario Provincial Police reported about 200 collisions on the roads over a 24-hour period and 150 vehicles got stuck in the snow.
Across the Maritimes on Sunday, it was snow, high winds and freezing rain. Central and northern New Brunswick was expected to get more than 35 centimetres of snow, and a freezing rain warning was in effect in Nova Scotia.
Two fire trucks slid off the road en route to a call on Sunday and one of them ended up on its side in Queens County, southwest of Halifax.
Slippery conditions in the Halifax were continuing on Monday for the province’s public holiday, Heritage Day.
Environment Canada issued a wind warning for Prince Edward Island for Monday. Winds are expected to be around 90 km/h at their peak, causing blowing snow and knocking down visibility.
In Western Canada, extreme cold warnings remained in effect on Monday in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Windchill values around -40 C to -45 C are expected to continue into midweek.
