Toronto, Montreal tackle towering snow piles after back-to-back storms
Prairie provinces to remain bitterly cold until mid-week
People in the eastern half of Canada are digging out after another monster storm dumped huge amounts of snow for the second time in recent days, with parts of Quebec walloped the hardest.
The weather has caused travel disruptions across Ontario and Quebec, with train cancellations, vehicle collisions and a crash at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, in which a plane flipped over on landing, injuring 17 people.
Montreal and Laval, Que., reported that about 40 centimetres of snow had dropped as of 1 a.m. ET Monday, with 35 centimetres accumulating in the Eastern Townships.
In Montreal, snow was expected to continue into Monday. Environment Canada has issued a blizzard warning for much of southern and central Quebec along the St. Lawrence, as well as the Gaspé Peninsula.
City of Montreal spokesperson Philippe Sabourin said on Monday that over the past five days, the city has seen about 40 per cent of the snow it usually gets in an average winter, totalling at least 70 centimetres — and it will be "quite a challenge" to clear all of it.
Sabourin said crews have at least eight days of snow loading, or removal, ahead of them as plows work on 1,000 kilometres of streets. He said most streets have already been cleared, but about 50 per cent of the sidewalks still need work. Garbage pickup has been cancelled for the week, he added, due to the need to first clear away the large snowbanks.
Many daycares, along with English- and French-language primary and high schools, in the Greater Montreal area were closed on Monday due to snow.
Police have been urging motorists to avoid non-essential travel. Sabourin advised people to work from home if they could on Monday because the province does not observe a public holiday like some other provinces.
Ontario was marking Family Day, so schools and many businesses were scheduled to remain closed, keeping traffic lighter.
Environment Canada had issued its winter storm warning for across southern Ontario and Quebec on Saturday.
By Sunday, the storm was bearing down on the two provinces for the second wintry strike since Thursday, when between 20 and 40 centimetres or more fell, depending on the region.
"The situation has tempered down in southern Ontario, so at least there is some relief for those regions," said Jean-Philippe Bégin, warning preparedness meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada, adding that about 25 to 30 centimetres of snow fell in the Greater Toronto Area.
Similar conditions were seen in southeastern Ontario, with more than 30 centimetres of snow blanketing the Ottawa area. To the west of Toronto, Hamilton received 32 centimetres of snow, Environment Canada said.
Although Environment Canada lifted its storm warning for the Greater Toronto Area on Sunday night, the weather service said a snow squall warning remains in effect for communities along the Bruce Peninsula to the west and in the Georgian Bay area to the north, as 30 to 60 centimetres were expected to fall from Monday morning into Tuesday.
After a mid-week storm brought 40 centimetres of snow, Toronto got hit with another 26 centimetres, and it's all got to go somewhere.
Toronto snow plow driver Zach McLeod said clearing downtown streets will be challenging.
"The snow is so much that downtown there really aren't a lot of places to put the snow," he said.
Slow process to move piles of snow
Vincent Sferrazza, Toronto's director of operations and maintenance for transportation services, said the priority is to clear the roads, and then workers will come back to remove the massive piles, put them in dump trucks and transport them to various storage sites across the city.
Sferrazza said city officials expect snow removal will take three weeks to complete.
"The last time that we needed to do snow removal of this magnitude was in January 2022, when we received approximately 50 to 55 centimetres," he said in a media briefing on Monday.
According to a Monday news release from the city, snow removal will be done on major travel arteries first, and parking is prohibited on all snow routes, which includes all streetcar routes.
Flights delayed, plane flipped over on runway
Shortly before 3 p.m. ET, a post shared by Toronto's Pearson airport stated that it was aware of "an incident upon landing involving a Delta Air Lines plane arriving from Minneapolis."
Photos and video reportedly taken by passengers on the flight show a plane flipped over on its back on the runway.
A total of 17 people were injured in the crash, according to an update by officials Monday evening. Ornge, Ontario's air ambulance service, had shared earlier that three of the individuals were transported to hospital with critical injuries, including one pediatric patient. None are believed to be in life-threatening condition.
Numerous flights slated to land at Pearson on Monday were diverted to other airports. A ground stop briefly halted all air traffic in or out of Pearson, but it was later lifted, although a number of flights are still listed as cancelled or delayed. Two runways remain closed, and officials anticipate some operational impact in the coming days.
Flights were also cancelled or delayed at Montreal-Trudeau International Airport on Monday, with officials warning travellers to check their flight status before heading to the airport.
More than 15 Via Rail trains were cancelled along the Windsor-Quebec City corridor on Monday due to the winter storm.
For motorists, conditions rapidly deteriorated in the two provinces on Sunday. In Quebec, provincial police reported a major collision on Highway 20 near Drummondville, about 90 kilometres northeast of Montreal. Twenty vehicles were involved including transport trucks, but no injuries were reported.
Ontario Provincial Police reported about 200 collisions over a 24-hour period, and 150 vehicles were stuck in the snow.
Extreme cold in the Prairies
In Western Canada, extreme cold warnings remained in effect on Monday in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Windchill values around –40 C to –45 C are expected to continue into mid-week. Some regions in the Prairies are predicting wind chill values reaching –50 C overnight into Tuesday morning.
The weather service said that by mid-morning Monday, Key Lake in north-central Saskatchewan was the country's "cold spot" at a chilly –48.5 C.
The frigid temperatures didn't stop Winnipeggers from enjoying outdoor activities as the province celebrated Louis Riel Day. Many residents still attended the 56th annual Festival du Voyageur or went skating, although one of western Manitoba's favourite ski hills, Asessippi Ski Resort, closed operations on Monday due to the extreme cold.
Environment Canada said temperatures will begin to rise by Thursday in those three provinces. They'll still be in double-digit negative territory in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but increase to only a few degrees below zero by Friday. Temperatures will be on the plus side in southern Alberta starting Thursday.
Freezing rain, high winds in Maritimes
Across the Maritimes on Sunday, it was snow, high winds and freezing rain, with many of these conditions continuing into Monday.
Following bouts of freezing rain in Nova Scotia, high wind warnings were in effect Monday across the province as it celebrated Heritage Day, with Environment Canada warning that winds could reach around 90 km/h at their peak, causing blowing snow and knocking down visibility.
Similar high wind warnings were issued for Prince Edward Island, while several regions in northeastern New Brunswick were under winter storm warnings.
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With files from The Canadian Press and CBC News' Alexandra Mae Jones