Winter vs Spring

I often talk about the big snowstorm of March 1971 that influenced my interest in weather. Truth of the matter is that the entire 70's were filled with large and historical snowstorms. This brings me to today, 36 years ago, April 3, 1975. Historically April can be a month of summery weather or wintry weather. The month often features epic battles between winter and spring, and you are just a likely to have a snowstorm as a tornado.

APRIL RECORDS
April 3 historically in Montreal brings that battle to the forefront. Just last year the entire region had record setting high temperatures on this date. It reached 30C in St Anicet and 29C in Burlington Vermont. Montreal also had a record high at 25.7C. Ironically on this date in 1975 another record was established as a powerful late winter storm hit Montreal and the region. The low pressure produced a record setting 25.7cm of snow in 24 hours with 30cm total for the storm. During that 24 hour period, visibilities were never more than 1km. Winds with the storm gusted to 90km/h basically bringing transportation to a halt. The heavy wet snow also knocked out power. The storm also featured a very low barometric pressure of 980mb at Montreal, or the equivalent of a strong category 1 hurricane.

SNOW TONIGHT
The next 24 hours in Ontario and Quebec will reinforce the above statements. Strong low pressure over Iowa has already produced heavy snow across the southern Prairies with over 25cm in Calgary. This storm is pushing a warm front and an area of snow and rain northeast across southern Ontario at this hour and towards the Ottawa Valley. Wet snow will fall overnight in Montreal and Ottawa, with several centimetres possible before the changeover to rain in the morning. The rain will fall heavily at times on Monday with even the risk of a rumble of thunder over southern Ontario. Precipitation totals of 15-25mm are forecast with as much as 40mm in regions that see thunderstorm activity. Temperatures will cool to around 0C tonight, but rise to around 6 or 7C on Monday in Montreal and perhaps a little cooler in Ottawa.