The mild weather of the weekend disrupted the progress of winter events throughout the province, such as the Canadian Ski Marathon in Outaouais or the Quebec Carnival.
“Due to the high temperature throughout the Carnival, and for the safety of our Carnival participants, our experts recommend that we close access to the Palais de Bonhomme,” the organizers of the 70 announced on Sunday.e edition of this celebration. For this last day of the event, visitors were only able to observe the two-story ice castle from the outside.
In Quebec, as elsewhere in the province, the mild weather that arrived last Friday continued on Saturday, detailed Dominic Martel, meteorologist at Environment Canada. According to preliminary data from the federal agency, several cities broke records on February 10, including Montreal, where the mercury reached 9.5 degrees, and Gatineau, 6.1 degrees.
Despite the technical challenges, the warm weather was advantageous for the Quebec Carnival, believes its general director, Marie-Eve Jacob. “We really had a lot of traffic on the weekends, especially for our two parades on February 3 and 10. »
The team behind the event must deal with the vagaries of the weather at each edition, raises Mme Jacob. “Last year, we opened with extreme cold. In fact, we even had to delay the opening of the carnival twice. [Je] I think that the key is to be very agile and to be ready to deal with ice, rain, extreme cold as well as mild weather. »
A modified route
In Outaouais, the Canadian Ski Marathon (MCS) which takes place mainly in Montebello and Papineauville had to make changes to its route before kicking off. The high temperatures of the previous days had damaged the tracks. “The MCS team has put in place a contingency plan which will only minimally affect your skiing experience on Saturday and Sunday,” however, those responsible specified in a message sent on Friday to the 1,137 participants.
The event, which is in its 58the publishing in the region, has had to face many challenges over the years, underlines Sylvain Parent, volunteer on the MCS Board of Directors. “The mild temperatures of the last few weeks and this weekend, on the other hand, are rarely seen,” he admits. Additional modifications to the course had to be made on Sunday morning.
However, winter enthusiasts across the province will be able to rejoice in the middle of next week. “Temperatures will return close to normal, which is -5 degrees,” says Dominic Martel of Environment Canada.