Freezing Rain Warning - Highway 30 Grand Opening

A rather difficult forecast for Montreal this week with snow, freezing rain and rain. (AccuWeather.com)

Low pressure and a warm front to our southwest will produce an area of snow and freezing rain for the St. Lawrence Valley from this morning into Monday. Radar at 8 am is showing a band of light snow stretching across eastern Ontario including Ottawa, and edging into the Montreal region. The snow will be light with accumulations by the end of the afternoon up to 5cm (2 inches) locally. Temperatures this morning are cold at -9C here on L'Ile Perrot. Add to that a northeast wind of 30 to 40km/h, and windchill values are down to -20C. There is much warmer air to our southwest with Toronto up to 6C (43F) with rain and Kingston at -3C. The cold air will remain well entrenched in our region so look for temperatures to remain below freezing well into Monday. As a result precipitation will change to a light mix of freezing rain and snow by late today. Temperatures will slowly rise to highs near the freezing point by Monday afternoon. Environment Canada has posted a freezing rain warning for all of southern and eastern Ontario from Lake Ontario northeast to Ottawa as well as in extreme southwest Quebec including here on L'Ile Perrot. Those warnings will likely be extended to the rest of metro Montreal later today. Winter weather advisories are in effect for northern New York and Vermont. As I already mentioned, precipitation will be light, but enough to create dangerous travel at times.

Above and below are pictures I took yesterday while travelling south on the newly opened toll road Autoroute 30 here in the RM of Vaudreuil/Dorion. The long awaited highway opened under bright sunny skies. It offers an alternate route around the city of Montreal to the south joining southwestern Quebec and eastern Ontario traffic to the highways going east to Atlantic Canada and south to New York. The route features a tunnel under the St. Lawrence Seaway as well as two new bridges connecting the north and south shores of the St. Lawrence River. (ValleyWX Pictures). More information is available at www.a30express.com/en  

The balance of the weak will remain unsettled with several more opportunities for wintry precipitation. There may be enough snow to plow but it will be very dependent on the temperatures here in the valley. Most forecast models are having a difficult time with that this morning, so expect snow or rain from Tuesday into Saturday.