More freezing rain, winter conditions expected overnight in Quebec

Freezing rain continued to fall on southern Quebec Wednesday evening as roughly 100,000 customers were without power and a section of Montreal's light-rail network is shut down for the night.

Meanwhile, Environment Canada is warning northern regions should brace for hazardous winter conditions.

An orange alert from Environment and Climate Change Canada was still in effect Wednesday evening for a wide swath of southern Quebec, with freezing rain amounts up to 30 millimetres in the forecast.

Giselle Dhookie, a meteorologist with the weather agency, said a band of freezing rain that moved across the province's southwest late Wednesday afternoon was expected to persist into the evening.

While the system is nearing its end, Dhookie warned that the overnight period poses the greatest risk.

"With the amount of precipitation that will have fallen and accumulated, trees will start to fall and hit electrical panels," she said. "There will be power outages at the same time as temperatures drop."

Premier François Legault took to social media to reassure the public, stating that Hydro-Québec crews are on standby and ready to respond throughout the night. According to the Crown corporation, there are service interruptions throughout the province.

In Montreal, nearly 20,000 customers were without power as of 9:30 p.m. On the South Shore, in Montérégie, more than 40,000 customers were affected. In the Outaouais region, the outages are still affecting approximately 14,000. Thousands were without power in the Quebec City area as well as central Quebec.

The Ministry of Transport is closely monitoring water runoff and its impact on road conditions, particularly in the Montérégie, Estrie, Centre-du-Québec, Lanaudière and Chaudière-Appalaches regions, Legault said in his post.

Provincial police have also been deployed additional officers to manage the situation, the premier added.

This comes after school centres across Quebec pre-emptively cancelled classes for the day Wednesday. Universities and CEGEPs did the same. Now, school officials say they are monitoring the situation closely and will make a decision about Thursday by 6 a.m.

During a technical briefing on Tuesday, Environment Canada said that freezing rain was expected to begin as early as 6 a.m. in Montreal, but that wasn't the case. The storm came later than expected, bringing more inclement conditions later in the day and evening.

More than 150 flights were cancelled Wednesday at Montreal’s Trudeau airport in anticipation of the poor conditions. 

Environment Canada advised against non-essential travel, and officials with the City of Montreal and the provincial government urged people to stay home if possible.