Powerful coastal storm to brush Montreal - arctic cold returns

Heavy equipment clearing the latest snowfall in Saint Laurent on Wednesday morning. With the recent deep freeze, the mounds of snow are growing rapidly. (ValleyWX)

Happy New Year! The cold air has briefly retreated in southern Quebec, allowing the extreme cold warning to expire, finally. Temperatures "warmed" to -14C (7F) on Tuesday, with 5cm of fresh snow. The snow caused the usual chaos on Montreal highways, with numerous accidents reported.

Montreal will remain on the western edge of a powerful east coast storm. (AccuWeather)

Strong Coastal Storm
Our attention now turns to a rapidly developing low pressure area off the Florida coast. The storm is forecast to deepen into a major Nor'Easter within the next 24 hours, while skirting the Atlantic seaboard. Snow and freezing rain is expected from northern Florida into Atlantic Canada. This morning, snow is falling as far south as Tallahassee, Florida. The ice and snow has caused wide ranging delays to air and ground travel along the entire east coast. Heavy snow is forecast along the Carolina coast into Virginia Beach today. As the storm strengthens on Thursday, heavy snow will overspread coastal New England and Atlantic Canada. In addition to the snow, winds will increase along the path of the storm, gusting in excess of 100km/h at times. Coastal areas from Cape Cod into Nova Scotia can also expect some flooding and beach erosion. Widespread power outages are possible in New England and the Maritimes.

The hardest hit regions can expect up to 40cm (14 inches) of snow. Here in southern Quebec, we will remain on the extreme western edge of the system, with light snow and strong northeast winds developing from east to west Thursday afternoon. If the track of the system remains constant with the forecast models, we can expect 5 to 10cm of snow late Thursday into Friday morning. Across the Eastern Townships and into the Gaspe and far eastern Quebec, 15 to 30cm of snow is likely. Travel will be extremely difficult for anyone going south or east of Montreal on Thursday and Friday.

Fresh Arctic Blast
Behind the storm, a fresh blast of arctic air will surge into the region, along with strong north winds. Temperatures will drop to -18C (0F) during the day Friday, with overnight lows expected by Saturday morning between -25C and -30C (-13C to -22C). Daytime highs on Saturday will be frigid, near -22C (-7F) in Montreal. Combined with the strong winds expected, the windchill will be as cold as -40C. Warnings will be likely. By Sunday, we can expect a warming trend, with a high all the way up to -10C (14F). More snow is on the way for Monday and Tuesday.