Large amounts of ice are expected in parts of Quebec starting Wednesday night, raising fears of fresh power outages among some customers.
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Environment Canada has issued a freezing rain warning for Greater Montreal, Laval, Montérégie, Basses-Laurentides, Estrie and the Ottawa Valley.
The hardest-hit region is expected to be the Montérégie, where 10 to 20mm of freezing rain is expected from Wednesday evening through Thursday morning.
“Surfaces such as roads, streets, sidewalks and parking lots are becoming icy, slippery and extremely dangerous,” warns Environment Canada.
Greater Montreal and Laval should receive an accumulation of 2 to 10 mm of freezing rain, in addition to 5 to 10 cm of snow or sleet.
Several sectors of the eastern townships should receive 2 to 5mm of ice.
The Ottawa Valley and Lower Laurentians are expected to receive a mix of freezing rain, snow and ice pellets.
Hydro-Québec’s teams are monitoring the arrival of this new system and say they are ready to intervene in the event of an outage.
“We’re on the lookout and if we need to intervene, our teams are ready,” Hydro-Québec spokeswoman Caroline Des Rosiers said in an interview with LCN.
This freezing rain episode comes exactly 25 years to the day after the ice storm that plunged millions of Quebecers into darkness.