The latest news on winter storms complicating holiday travel across Canada

The most recent information on storms and different excessive climate shutting down energy and creating tough journey circumstances on the peak of the vacation season throughout Canada:

12:57 p.m.

Surroundings Canada says climate alerts stay in impact for Newfoundland and Labrador, in addition to elements of Prince Edward Island and Ontario as the consequences of a significant winter storm that hit six provinces proceed to be felt.

Meteorologist Gerald Cheng says the centre of the storm is now simply south of James Bay, however the massive storm continues to trigger excessive winds in areas the place it handed via yesterday.

He says Newfoundland and Labrador can count on a “wintery combine” of snow, adopted by ice pellets and freezing rain, after which by rain.

In elements of Southern Ontario alongside the good lakes, blizzard circumstances are persevering with and a few results of the storm might final till Wednesday.

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12:46 p.m.

A RisePEI lady visiting her dad and mom close to Campbellton, N.B. is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her sister and younger nephew who’ve been on a By way of Rail practice since Friday night.

Killa Atencio says her sister and four-year-old nephew have been scheduled to depart Montreal round 7 p.m. Friday, however resulting from excessive climate they have been caught on an unmoving practice for 13 hours.

The practice ultimately acquired transferring round 8 a.m. Saturday, which is an hour after they have been scheduled to reach in New Brunswick.

Barring any additional journey disruptions, Atencio says the mom and son could have spent greater than 24 hours on the practice.

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12:34 p.m.

Ontario Provincial Police says a stretch of Freeway 401 in southwestern Ontario stays closed resulting from visibility points.

Sgt. Kerry Schmidt of the provincial police drive’s Freeway Security Division says a portion of the busy freeway is closed between Tilbury and London, and Freeway 402 is closed between Sarnia and London.

Roads and stretches of freeway are additionally closed in lots of elements of the province, together with all roads within the townships of Woolwich, Wilmot and Dufferin County.

OPP says no site visitors fatalities have been reported for the reason that begin of the storm however is warning residents to keep away from journey till circumstances enhance.

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11:50 a.m.

Hydro-Québec says it’s too quickly to say when will probably be in a position to restore energy to folks throughout the province, as icy circumstances proceed to sluggish work.

The utility says round 300,000 clients are at the moment with out energy, a lot of whom misplaced energy in a single day because the storm reached new elements of the province and snow accumulations downed branched and bushes, resulting in outages.

Sophie Brochu, the Crown company’s CEO, advised reporters that it has reconnected greater than 200,000 folks since yesterday afternoon, however that one other 200,000 folks have misplaced energy throughout the identical interval.

Hydro-Québec says its purpose is to reconnect individuals who misplaced energy on Friday by time for dinner on Christmas day, however individuals who misplaced energy in a single day might have to attend till Tuesday.

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11:45 a.m.

Tens of 1000’s of consumers are with out energy as a significant storm continues to batter elements of Ontario.

Hydro One is reporting greater than 1,500 energy outages as of 11:30 a.m. affecting greater than 78,000 clients, with the biggest outages affecting areas close to Ottawa, Toronto and Kingston, Ont.

Smaller pockets of outages are additionally affecting northern and central areas within the province, with outages stretching from Chatham-Kent to Cornwall.

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10:43 a.m.

Nova Scotia Energy says lights are again on at greater than 90,000 households within the province, leaving fewer than 14,000 houses at midnight.

The non-public utility’s storm lead Matt Drover says that outages are largely concentrated within the western and central elements of the province the place wind speeds topped 115 kilometres an hour final night time.

Drover says 300 Nova Scotia Energy crew members have been engaged on restoring energy via the night time, and he expects nearly all of houses could have energy restored by the top of the day.

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10:22 a.m.

By way of Rail says 9 trains working between Quebec Metropolis and Windsor have been immobilized resulting from excessive climate circumstances, and a few passengers on social media say they’ve been caught for over 18 hours with out meals or water.

The rail service says 9 trains are at the moment caught resulting from energy outages, bushes on tracks and even a tree falling on a locomotive.

Passenger Vee Grunda on By way of practice 55, which left Ottawa at 3:30 p.m. on Friday for Toronto, says she has been caught in Cobourg, Ont., since 11 p.m. final night time with out meals, water or communication from employees onboard.

Grunda says some passengers are leaping off the practice into the snow, and police and paramedic companies are onboard as they await an emergency practice to reach with meals.

By way of Rail says to count on important service delays within the Quebec Metropolis-Windsor hall right now and is urging passengers to examine its web site earlier than going to By way of stations.

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10:19 a.m.

Greater than 320,000 Hydro-Québec clients stay with out energy this morning, together with almost 80,000 within the Quebec Metropolis space.

Within the Côte-Nord area of northeastern Quebec, greater than half of Hydro-Québec clients are with out energy, whereas within the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean area, energy outages proceed to have an effect on round a 3rd of the utility’s clients.

Quebec Metropolis and the town of Saguenay have opened warming shelters for residents with out energy.

A number of provincial roads stay closed and plenty of ferry crossings alongside the St-Lawrence River have been cancelled resulting from continued poor circumstances.

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10:03 a.m.

WestJet says 60 flights scheduled to fly out of Toronto Pearson Airport right now have been cancelled, in addition to one flight scheduled for Sunday that’s been cancelled forward of Christmas Day.

WestJet cancelled all flights at airports in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia on Friday with affected airports together with these in Toronto, Ottawa, London, Ont., Waterloo, Ont., and Montreal.

WestJet’s Chief Operations Officer Diederik Pen says the corporate apologizes for the disruptions to vacation journey plans and its groups are attempting to get better operations on the bottom and within the air.

Pen says the intense and extended climate impacting areas throughout B.C., southern Ontario and Quebec are not like something the corporate has ever skilled.

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9:50 a.m.

Lights are out for greater than 90,000 energy clients throughout Atlantic Canada.

About 41,000 clients in Nova Scotia are nonetheless with out energy as of late morning after excessive winds reaching greater than 115 kilometres an hour had knocked out electrical energy for about 104,000 clients.

In New Brunswick, 669 regional outages had about 41,051 clients at midnight.

And on Prince Edward Island, Maritime Electrical says about 10,250 clients are with out electrical energy.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Dec. 24, 2022.

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