Bitter winter welcome to 2015

After a green Christmas for millions of Canadians, which saw virtually no snow on the ground in much of the southern parts of the country, 2015 has come in with a shocking reminder of Canadian winters.

Indeed there are a wide variety of weather warnings right across the entire country.

A sudden snow squall on the weekend blew across southern Ontario and Quebec, the two largest and most populous provinces. This was followed by a rather unusual rainfall which froze on the ground and trees creating havoc as branches broke under the strain taking power lines with them.   In Quebec, about 160,000 customers were without power at the peak of the weekend storm, and on Monday there were still about 9,000 without electricity.

Many cars travelling on the main highway across southern Ontario, known as the 401 or Trans Canada, ended up in the ditch. In the near whiteout conditions on Saturday a major crash involving about 70 cars and heavy transport trucks near Trenton closed the highway for several hours.

Along the west coast, the major centre of Vancouver saw little problem on the weekend, but interior parts of the province were hit with heavy snow, freezing rain and snow and reports of many cars spun off the road.

Feels like -40

The prairie provinces and much of the rest of Canada are experiencing frigid wind chills, with temperatures across the prairies ranging from -20 to -30 Celsius but with wind chills making it feel like -40 or colder.

Across southern Ontario and Quebec, the wind this Monday morning also made it feel much colder with temperatures of -12 but with wind chills making it feel like -25.

In addition the cold has turned the wet snow into hard ice making it very difficult for drivers to dig their cars out of the piles of snow.

The east coast port of Halifax is at -12 this morning, but with wind making it feel like -20 and with a snow storm and freezing rain on its way across the maritimes along with very strong wind gusts in Labrador and Newfoundland.