The sudden spring snowstorm that buried southern Quebec
Travel screeched to a halt across southern Quebec in late-March 2001 after an unusually late snowstorm hit the region
Winter wasn’t done with Quebec during the opening days of spring 2001 when a late-season nor’easter rolled up the eastern seaboard.
Traffic in Montreal came to a halt when the city saw more than 50 cm of snow, one of its largest snowstorms on record so late in the year.
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A moisture-packed centre of low pressure developed over the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, Mar. 19, 2001.
The system moved north over the next couple of days, sliding up the U.S. East Coast with plenty of heavy rainfall from Florida to New York.
Rain changed over to snow as the classic nor’easter approached a slug of cold air locked in place over New England and Eastern Canada.
Heavy, wet snow plastered communities from eastern Ontario to New Brunswick beginning that Wednesday, lasting all day Thursday, Mar. 22, and continuing into the following Friday in some locations.
The storm was an interesting start to astronomical spring throughout the region. Heavy bands of snow left a sharp gradient in totals from eastern Ontario to New Brunswick.
Montreal-Trudeau Airport picked up 50.2 cm of snow by the time the storm pulled out of the region. A swath of 30-40+ cm of snow fell from Cornwall, Ont., to Bathurst, N.B.
The weighty nature of the wet snow reportedly caused significant problems throughout the region, closing highways and knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses in southern Quebec.