High winds leave 100,000 Quebec homes in the dark

A massive tee was just one of hundreds toppled across western New York on Tuesday afternoon. (Syracuse.com)

A powerful line of thunderstorms and strong winds raced across Ontario, New York, Quebec and Vermont on Tuesday afternoon. The storms fueled by high heat and humidity, it reached 31C (88F) in Montreal, knocked down trees and power lines across a wide area. Thousands of homes went dark and remained that way for hours.

The carnage started in central and western New York early in the afternoon as significant damage from strong winds and isolated tornadoes was reported around Syracuse. In Madison County, NY, 4 people were killed after their homes were flattened by wind and thunderstorms. Power outages to over 250,000 homes and businesses were reported from Ohio and Pennsylvania into New York and Vermont by late afternoon. The front hit Montreal around 9pm Tuesday night with winds gusting between 70-90km/h across the entire metro region and Laval. Hydro Quebec reported over 100,000 customers in the dark across the province, 65,000 just in metro Montreal. Hard work overnight by the utility has dropped that number to 16,000 this morning.

Hydro Quebec was busy overnight restoring power to 100,000 Quebec homes and businesses. Between thunderstorms and tropical storm Arthur, the utility has had a crazy busy week. (CJAD)

Here on L'Ile Perrot around 12mm (0.5") of rain fell with the storms between 7 and 9pm, there was very little lightning, and winds over 50km/h. The front has broken the suffocating humidity, humidex readings were as high as 37C (100F) on Tuesday. Today will be cloudy with breaks, windy and cooler with highs near 24C (76F), and less humid. The heat and humidity will break until Saturday when it will begin to build again.