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A major winter storm hitting Ontario and Quebec on Friday caused widespread flight cancellations and school closures, and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers on Friday, with an Environment Canada meteorologist warning of a possible once-in-a-decade weather event.
Environment Canada predicted strong winds, heavy snowfall and possible flash freezing, issuing winter storm warnings for the vast majority of Ontario and Quebec.
“We may only see one of these storms every five or 10 years,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Mitch Meredith. “I’ve only seen a couple of storms like this in the last 20 years.”
Environment Canada said flash, or sudden, freezes were likely as rain turned to heavy snow on Friday in parts of southern Ontario, creating dangerous driving conditions.
Ontario Provincial Police shut down Highway 401 west of London on Friday morning after reporting multiple collisions. Meanwhile, strong winds began to wreak havoc on provincial utilities. Hydro Quebec said outages were affecting more than 225,000 customers.
