Storm lessens grip on region

An emotional goodbye to Montreal Canadiens great Jean Beliveau  took place on Wednesday, played out in typical Montreal hockey weather. Despite the heavy snow and strong winds thousands gathered for the funeral. This included hundreds of fans who lined the streets for the two hour funeral, watching it on frozen big screens outside the church. (CTV News)

The first big winter storm of the season for metro Montreal will begin to slowly taper off today. Nearly 27cm (11 inches) of snow has fallen in Montreal with a general 15-30cm (6-12") across the entire region. The snow has been wet and heavy and difficult to clean. Temperatures for the duration of the storm have been within a few degrees of 0C. The official high at Trudeau Airport on Wednesday was 0.2C with a low of -0.8C, not much range. Typically coastal lows pass very quickly on the way to Atlantic Canada but not this one. It has lingered over New England now for 48 hours and will continue to do so well into Friday before weakening. The result has been lots of Atlantic moisture being transported inland as far west as Toronto this morning. Light snow will continue into Friday before ending with perhaps another 5cm for Montreal. The weekend at this time looks fair and mild for the big cleanup.

Rainfall has exceeded 100mm (4 inches) across portions of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI, while heavy snow and freezing rain knocked out power to over 20,000 Hydro Quebec customers, mostly in the Quebec City and the Eastern Townships. Winds around Quebec City and the lower St. Lawrence were as high as 100km/h on Wednesday. Numerous flights in and out of Trudeau Airport were either delayed or cancelled. The roads were terrible during the evening commute with a number of major accidents and even the closer of Highway 20 east of Quebec City due to whiteout conditions.