Quebec ended the week under heavy snow. More than 20 cm of snow accumulated almost everywhere in the province, at the end of the first storm of the year – which fell on Friday the 13th. Despite the wind and the sleet, the damage was all in all limited.
At the end of the day, between 20 and 25 cm of snow fell in Montreal, according to Environment Canada. From Quebec to Trois-Rivières, snow accumulations reached 20 cm in places.
The snowfalls were also impressive in the Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie regions: between 15 and 35 cm, depending on the sector.
At times, sleet and freezing rain mixed with the snow.
The wind was also in the game, so that many school service centers, concentrated in eastern Quebec, decided to close their doors for the day.
The last flakes fell during the evening. From Saturday, the clouds should give way to the sun and the mercury should also go down. “We’re going to have a great weekend to enjoy the snow,” summarizes Simon Legault, meteorologist at Environment Canada.
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Pierre Bachand, physical education teacher at Saint-Clément school
Limited damage
No major accident was reported Friday on the roads of Quebec. The storm still caused some inconvenience to traffic.
In the afternoon, the Société de transport de Montréal observed delays on certain bus lines and invited its customers to plan more time than usual for their trips.
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Margaret Béliveau and Mathieu Stevenson from Cégep Vanier did one of their school assignments in the snow.
At Montreal-Trudeau airport, many flights were delayed and some canceled. Ditto at the Jean-Lesage airport in Quebec, where internal flights were mostly canceled or delayed due to weather conditions.
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Met in Maisonneuve Park, Francis Lizotte went to work by bike. ” It is rough, he said. When it slips too much, I get off the bike. But I am very happy that there is snow. I’m going cross-country skiing. »
Finally, a handful of power outages were still in progress at the end of the evening throughout the province, indicates Hydro-Québec. Most of the affected customers were concentrated in Montérégie and the Capitale-Nationale region.
Loading operation
Already, Montreal is preparing to launch its second full snow load operation of the season. “Nearly 3,000 people and 2,200 snow removal vehicles will take part in loading operations on some 10,000 km of streets, sidewalks and bike paths in Montreal,” the City said.
“At the latest, Sunday evening, the 19 boroughs will have launched their snow load. Some will start on Saturday, but most probably on Sunday, ”explained the administrative spokesperson for the City of Montreal, Philippe Sabourin.
Due to the amount of snow on the ground, the operation could take more than five days, he warns.
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On leave, Mathieu Lalonde took advantage of the morning to bring his 18-month-old son Arthur to the Montreal Insectarium. “Now that there is snow, we are going to come back to cross-country ski in Maisonneuve Park,” he promises himself.
“We are very happy”
The abundant snowfall also made people happy.
A happy gaggle of students and teachers turned their noses, reddened by the cold, into Maisonneuve Park on Friday morning for a cross-country skiing activity that had been planned for more than a month.
“We were afraid that the schools would be closed or that it would rain or sleet as announced. But the better it went this morning, the more it snowed. So we are very happy,” says Pierre Bachand, physical education teacher at Saint-Clément school.
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In the next few hours, the City of Montreal will begin its second full snow load operation for this season.
A little further, rue Davidson, Ronald Michaud, driving a tow truck with the acronym of the CAA, finished freeing a stuck car. “It’s relatively quiet. We don’t have a lot of traffic, ”he observes.
With The Canadian Press