Environment Canada’s wind warning in Toronto has concluded, yet high winds and power outages persist in Ontario on Monday evening, with areas north of the city preparing for snow squalls.
Newmarket, Georgina, and the northern York Region are under a snow squall alert, with blizzard conditions anticipated, as warned by Environment Canada on Monday evening. These regions are expected to receive 15 to 25 cm of snow, continuing until Wednesday afternoon and possibly surpassing 30 cm by Thursday morning, according to Environment Canada.
Travel conditions are expected to be extremely dangerous, with visibility dropping to near zero at times, prompting Environment Canada to discourage non-essential travel.
As of 7:20 a.m. on Tuesday, the Hydro One outage map displayed slightly over 15,000 customers in the province still without power following a storm system that brought strong winds, heavy precipitation, and plummeting temperatures. This number has decreased from around 50,000 customers on Monday morning, as per a Hydro One spokesperson.
Tiziana Baccega Rosa, speaking on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, mentioned that each outage has its own estimated restoration time, subject to change as crews assess the damage further.
Customers in Orangeville and Guelph were among the most impacted as of Monday evening, according to Hydro One’s map. Since the storm began on Sunday, Hydro One has restored power to over 88,000 customers, shared spokesperson Kaitlyn Forde via email. Forde acknowledged the difficulties of being without power during the holidays and assured that crews are working diligently with contractors and local utilities to restore power promptly and safely.
Forde attributed most of the damage to downed lines from ice accumulation, highlighting that outages may persist overnight as high winds continue in parts of the province.