Quebec faces bone-chilling polar vortex this weekend
CBC
A strong polar vortex will slam into Quebec this weekend, bringing the coldest weather of the season.
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has issued a yellow warning — meaning moderate impact — for most of the province and parts of Ontario. Farther west, the warning has reached orange, meaning high impact.
“Very cold weather is forecast this weekend,” the ECCC says on its website. “Extreme cold puts everyone at risk.”
On Saturday, wind chill values will reach near –35 C overnight and early Sunday morning. The ECCC recommends people dress warmly, in layers, including a wind-resistant outer layer.
And if it’s too cold for you to stay outside, it’s too cold for your pet.
Cold warnings are issued when very cold temperatures or wind chill creates an elevated risk to health such as frostbite and hypothermia, the ECCC explains.
This weekend, a high of –20 C is forecasted. To put that in perspective, most standard freezers are set at –18 C.
“We could reach below –35 C in the northern part of the region that we are concerned about, let’s say Abitibi, Lac-Saint-Jean, maybe the northernmost part of Mauricie as well,” said Simon Legault, a meteorologist with ECCC.
Hydro-Québec is gearing up for peak electricity demand as everyone heats their homes. It is forecasting an annual peak consumption of 40,000 megawatts on Sunday morning, exceeding the Crown corporation's production capacity of 37,000 megawatts.
In an interview with Midi Info, spokesperson Cendrix Bouchard expressed optimism. He pointed out that the corporation had already met an even higher demand in 2023, around 43,000 megawatts.
The Crown corporation offers tools, such as dynamic pricing, to help Quebec households and businesses better manage their electricity consumption, Bouchard said.
“This includes, among other measures, customers shifting their usage outside of peak periods in exchange for financial compensation in the form of a credit on their bill,” he said.
Montreal Public Health is also warning people about the cold on its website, offering tips on how to stay protected. When dealing with extreme cold, the health agency says basic precautions can prevent serious risks like frostbite and hypothermia.
To stay safe, drink hot beverages, eat frequently and avoid cotton against the skin, which retains moisture. Change out of wet clothes promptly and inform a trusted contact of your whereabouts, the agency says.
Police on the west coast of Newfoundland say a 27-year-old woman was arrested on Friday night for impaired and dangerous driving, after being caught speeding down the main road in the rural community of Piccadilly at 88 km/h over the speed limit.
Scientists are seeing tropical fish in Nova Scotia with more frequency, and their arrival is prompting concerns about what their presence could mean for local species down the road.
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says health care won’t be exempt from her efforts to cut spending — even though her health minister says big spending increases will be unavoidable in coming years.
Pierre Ny St-Amand, the man who drove a bus into a Laval daycare in 2023, killing two young children and injuring six others, has been declared a high-risk accused.
A former CTV and CBC reporter hired to serve as Manitoba’s trade envoy to the United States is taking home more than $480,000 Cdn a year in consulting fees, according to his contract with the province.
The teen who lit her classmate on fire at a Saskatoon high school returns to court on Monday to learn the judge's decision on her sentence.
On a July morning in 2024, Dwayne Cardinal was packing up his tent outside the Bissell Centre when a police cruiser pulled up and two officers got out.
The City of Revelstoke and the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District have passed motions formalizing their intention to push the provincial government to protect an old-growth forest.
The province will once again decide who will hold Niagara’s top municipal post after the sudden resignation last week of Bob Gale, but exactly when the next regional chair will be announced isn’t clear just yet.
A wind warning is in place for Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia-Lambton on Monday with gusts as high as 90 km/h possible, according to Environment Canada.
Just a year after the Alberta government made a big splash unveiling its new border security team to the public with an announced $29-million investment, its latest budget shows the province only spent a third of the total it earmarked for the work over its first year.
Following several fatal collisions in northern Ontario this winter, a Sudbury, Ont., resident has created a website to track incidents across the region.
A Cambridge endometriosis advocate’s petition calling for change in how the disease is treated and recognized in Canada has received sponsorship by a member of Parliament.