Storm cleanup continues in southern Quebec

From Peter McCabe of the Montreal Gazette, cleaning tree debris in the Ste Rose district of Laval on Monday. Hydro Quebec truck in the background restoring power.

Cleaning up the mess in the aftermath of Friday's severe weather continues this morning across the hard hit lower Laurentians and Laval, north of Montreal. Nearly 15,000 Hydro customers remain with power in Quebec down from nearly one half million during the storm Friday. Municipalities have been removing thousands of fallen trees, especially in Laval where the cleanup may take several weeks according to officials.

I have family in the Montreal suburb of Dorval and they were without power for nearly 48 hours. The bulk of the outages were caused during a three hour period Friday when strong thunderstorms brought an end to the 5 day heatwave. Winds gusted in excess of 100km/h bringing down trees on power lines. Meanwhile lightning struck and tripped many transformers. Hydro Quebec and in Ontario Hydro One and Toronto Hydro have been working around the clock to restore power to its clients. Thankfully it has been a little cooler.

David Asch's photo of his Toyota Camry crushed under a  fallen tree south of St Saveur after Friday's storms.

Today we could see more thunderstorms as a cold front approaches the region from the northwest this afternoon. This morning steady and in some cases heavy rain is falling across New York and Vermont while it remains dry in Montreal and most of the St. Lawrence Valley. I am not expecting severe weather today, just some heavy rain at times. Showers and storms that develop this afternoon will last into the overnight. It will clear out on Wednesday and be much cooler and drier. Highs today in Montreal will be near 27C (80F) but only 21C (70F) Wednesday.