Snowy Boxing Day in Montreal

Hydro crews work through the Christmas Day holiday trying to restore power to thousands across the GTA. This photo is from Brampton. (CBC)

A weak clipper system is moving across southern Quebec this afternoon with a burst of light, fluffy snow. The snow should taper off this evening with between 5-10cm expected across the region. Temperatures today are slowly warming after a cold Christmas Day that had high temperatures no better than -14C in Montreal. We should eventually warm up today to around -5C, currently -10C on L'Ile Perrot and -12C at the airport in Dorval at noon. A light northeast wind is keeping temperatures down in Montreal. High pressure will move in for Friday before another series of weak clipper systems bring some flurries over the weekend. It will be mild Saturday and Sunday with highs near 0C (32F). Early next week an arctic cold front will bring snow flurries with more frigid weather returning by New Years Eve, lows down into the minus 20's.

It has warmed to near the freezing point in southern Ontario, a welcome relief after the deep freeze on Christmas Day. So many people had to celebrate the holiday in the dark or at warming centers. Power is still being restored across Toronto to many homes after the ice storm last weekend. Over 30,000 customers remain in the dark in Ontario, along with another 13,000 in Quebec and close to 30,000 in New Brunswick. Hydro workers from Ottawa and Manitoba are helping in Toronto. New York, Vermont and Maine are also still reporting outages with crews coming in from other parts of the US to help. Crews are having a difficult time reaching some of the damage with the accumulation of ice and snow and the fact they are responding to smaller outages now, individual lines into neighborhoods or customers homes.