Poor Travel

Mercier Bridge Traffic Cam in Montreal this morning tells the whole story...

Kemptville Mall in the ice and steady snow at 6:45am this morning.

Very poor travel conditions prevail across eastern Ontario and western Quebec at this hour. The cold air just never moved out yesterday and the precipitation remained frozen. The very dense arctic air remained in place and the best we could do in Kemptville was -4C at midnight. It has since dropped to -7C. In the snow department, a good 20cm has accumulated across the region. In Kemptville we also had several hours of freezing rain that deposited about 5mm of ice on top of the snow. It has since changed back to steady snow. The storm has forced cancellation of all school buses in Eastern Ontario including Ottawa. Add to that the OC Transpo strike - nice timing guys - and we are experiencing a very difficult travel morning. All highways are snow covered and very icy. The back edge of precipitation is about two hours away so expect the snow to taper off shortly. Winds are gusty and temperatures are dropping again. As a matter of fact the warm air made it as close as the US/Canada border but no further. In the last hour Highgate, Vermont, on the border has dropped over 8 degrees back well below freezing. Winter Storm Warnings remain posted for all regions with Winter Weather Advisories south of the border in St. Lawrence County.

In Montreal traffic is terrible. The Victoria Bridge to the south shore is closed this morning due to ice build up adding to the woes. My gal left work last night at 5:45pm from downtown, and a 20 minute trip took almost three hours. Today numerous schools are closed, and there are reports of sporadic power outages due to the ice and snow.