Montreal - much cooler with showers

Above & Below: For me  these are two of the most powerful images of the strength of water and the storm surge. Above is a large ship beached on Staten Island, NY. Below the barrier island community of Seaside Heights, NJ was almost destroyed with there famous boardwalk & amusement park swallowed by ocean water.
(AP Photos)

What is left of Sandy continues to slowly spin across Lake Erie and Ontario and into southern Quebec this morning. The system will take until Saturday to completely clear the region. What this means for Montreal is cold and damp weather into the weekend. In reality this is more like November. The onshore flow in the lower St. Lawrence and Charlevoix region of Quebec has resulted in heavy rain over the last few days. Water levels are rising on some rivers with as much as 150mm falling since Tuesday. The rain will continue today with a another 30-60mm possible. Nothing like that is our region with just nuisance showers and drizzle at times. Temperatures will be fairly uniform over the next few days remaining in the 5 to 10C range for highs and lows. By next week even cooler air will settle into the area with the chance of flurries by mid-week. No major storms are on the horizon at this time.

The massive clean up and recovery effort continues in New Jersey and the middle Atlantic. Millions remain without power but it is slowly coming back on. Over 150 Hydro Quebec workers and technicians are now in southern New Hampshire helping out there, and word is they will be as long as they are needed. On that note the death toll from Sandy increased to two in Canada yesterday after a Hydro One worker in Sarnia was electrocuted. In the US the death toll has climbed to over 50 with many of those in metro New York on Staten Island. The storm surge was fierce in that region leaving the area in ruins.

 Things may be slowly returning to a more normal level inland, but the coastal area is a different story, from Long Island to Cape May the area has seen incredible damage. It will take months if not years to recover, and a large portion of the area will never be the same with hundreds of feet of real estate swallowed by the Atlantic Ocean. My thoughts and prayers go out to all the residents and those who are helping them. It is a daunting task especially with winter and Nor'Easter season approaching. I have put up a link to the Red Cross on this page as always if you can help, please do so. This has been by far the worst storm I have seen hit that portion of the US coastline in the 33 years I have been tracking hurricanes.