(Montreal) At least one confirmed tornado and possibly two others made landfall in Quebec on Thursday as weather unleashed the province.
Posted at 11:13am. Updated at 2:10 p.m.
Pierre Saint-Arnaud The Canadian Press
Environment Canada provided an update on Friday about the weather events that shook southwest Quebec and the St. Lawrence Valley the previous day.
According to the federal agency, “a tornado was observed and confirmed at Mirabel, which may subsequently have moved toward Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines.” A funnel cloud was reported at Vaudreuil and another at Sorel-Tracy.” In the latter two cases confirmations are currently being carried out.
Environment Canada is working with the Northern Tornadoes Project and promises a full assessment once more information becomes available.
However, Environment Canada meteorologist Simon Legault explained that in the cases of Vaudreuil and Sorel-Tracy, one would still have to wait a few days before confirmation or not as experts still had to assess the contours closely as early as Thursday afternoon in Ottawa.
Around 125 houses were damaged by this further confirmed tornado in the federal capital.
Torrential rain
Rainfall ranged from 50 to 90 millimeters in all affected areas, causing sewage overflows and widespread flooding in several communities.
Environment Canada also reports that “Electrical activity was particularly intense and several fires were started by lightning.” Hail, one to two centimeters high, was reported, accompanied by violent gusts, including one that reached 70 miles per hour at Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, which resulted in the downing of numerous trees and power poles and damage to several buildings throughout southern Quebec.
Three fires believed to have been caused by lightning struck Quebec City. The Festival d’été de Québec had to cancel and postpone the events planned for Thursday evening.
The city of Trois-Rivières and its surroundings were also badly affected, especially by the rain. There are reports of flooding and damage, particularly at Expo TR. The Mauritian capital was also the place where the configuration of the meteorological system made it possible to take exceptional photos of the cloud cell, shots that are widely shared on social networks.
glitches
The number of outages continued to fall throughout the day on Friday, yet as of 1 p.m. 117,000 customers were still without power.
The regions most affected were, in order, Montérégie, Montreal, Lanaudière, Laval and the Laurentians.
Although almost 540,000 Hydro Quebec customers were without power as of 2:30 p.m. Thursday due to the wildfires, the situation was quickly resolved, but the violent storms immediately caused the numbers to rise again.
“The heavy rain combined with the wind caused the trees to come into contact with the lines,” explained Maryse Dalpé, senior director of network operations at Hydro-Québec, during a press conference.
“Some (trees) are stronger and the contact is light, the failure is easier to repair, but some are broken. If it breaks, it’s a tree that sags in our network and we can imagine very serious damage because it’s broken poles. »
She said that in some areas there would be greater damage from work on Saturday and Sunday, so citizens would have to be patient.
Montreal needs to adapt
A little earlier, the spokesman for the city of Montreal, Philippe Sabourin, had taken stock of the damage in the metropolis. More than 130 homes were flooded, more than a hundred trees fell and hundreds of branches were blown down. Half a dozen viaducts that had to be closed due to water accumulation had reopened on Friday morning.
Mr Sabourin explained that adapting to such events would require major investments, particularly the construction of retention basins, “huge underground cathedrals” as he envisioned, to hold back excess rainwater.