As people in Ontario and Quebec face blistering cold temperatures on Tuesday, parts of Eastern Canada prepared for a blizzard-like storm expected to touch down on Wednesday, with as much 30 centimetres of snow expected to pummel the region.
And to the chagrin of many, this second intense cold snap of the winter is likely to stick around longer than the one that hit the region in early January.
“For the next two weeks we’re not going to see a melting temperature in parts of Ontario and Quebec,” Dave Phillips, Environment Canada’s senior climatologist, told CTV News Channel. “The cold air is the bully -- it just dominates the scene over North America. And there is no other weather system from the west to kick it back up north.”
What’s caused temperatures to take a nosedive is a polar vortex, bringing arctic air into much of central Canada, with Environment Canada issuing wind chill warnings in both Toronto and Ottawa.
By mid-morning Tuesday, Toronto was sitting at -29 C with the wind chill, while Ottawa was even cooler at -35 C.
But a moment of warmth in the nation’s capital: someone actually put scarves on the statues at the Valiants Memorial, near Parliament Hill. The scarves each contained a paper message dangling from a string: “I am not lost! If you’re stuck in the cold, take this scarf to keep warm.”
Quebec City, however, was even cooler Tuesday, with the mercury dropping to -38 C with the wind chill.
Similar temperatures are expected in central Canada for much of the week, with temperatures getting warmer as the weekend approaches. Winnipeggers on Tuesday were dealing with -36 C temperatures with the wind-chill.
Out East, things were slightly warmer; Halifax was -20 C with the wind chill Tuesday morning. But residents there were preparing for an intense blizzard, the second in a span of three weeks.
Snow was expected to start falling overnight, accompanied by gusting winds. Then things were expected to get nastier, with Environment Canada forecasting 20 to 30 centimetres on Wednesday with winds gusting upward of 60 km/h. Blizzard warnings were in effect for much of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, as well as parts of New Brunswick. Parts of Newfoundland were also under winter storm warnings Tuesday.
Out West, Calgary and Edmonton were seeing higher temperatures than normal, both hovering around -8 C with the wind chill.
“So what we’re seeing is this contrast between very warm conditions … in Alberta, a transition over Saskatchewan, and then from Manitoba westward we see this very cold air,” Phillips said.
The Greater Toronto Airports Authority was advising travellers Tuesday to keep up to date on the status of their flights, as some have already been delayed or cancelled. During the last deep freeze on Jan. 7, the GTAA instituted a ground stop, halting all flights in and out of the airport for eight hours.
South of the border, 2,200 flights were cancelled by Tuesday morning and thousands more delayed as a winter storm pummelled the mid-Atlantic and northeast United States. An additional 450 flights for Wednesday are already cancelled. The U.S. National Weather Service says the storm could bring could bring as much as 25 centimetres of snow Tuesday to Philadelphia and New York, and even more to Boston.
But perhaps worse off than everyone on the continent were people up in Baker Lake, Nunavut. Residents in the small hamlet of 1,800 were dealing with a blizzard warning and -56 C temperatures with the wind-chill -- the coldest registered temperature Tuesday on Environment Canada’s website.
