Dangerous day to travel as blizzard blasts Quebec

Paramedics load a person into an ambulance following a 15-car pileup on Highway 20 near Boucherville on Friday, Feb. 14, 2014 (Pascal Marchand)

A blizzard has moved into Quebec, closing schools and making travel dangerous.

Montreal is expected to escape with about 15 cm of snow, but east of the city the forecast is calling for up to 45 cm of snow by the time the storm blows through on Saturday morning.

Many schools in the Lower Laurentians and Laval were closed on Friday because travel was considered to be too dangerous.

The Surete du Quebec is warning drivers that the snow combined with wind gusts of 100 km/h are making visibility very low on highways, especially in the Monteregie and Eastern Townships.

Near Quebec City Highway 20 along with Routes 132 and 279 were closed to traffic on Friday morning.

By 8 a.m. the SQ said it had received multiple reports of cars spinning off the road.

Around 7:30 a.m. about 15 cars slammed into each other on Eastbound Highway 20 near Boucherville.

Police said that most drivers were eventually able to get their cars out of the pileup, but several vehicles were towed and two people were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

At times Friday visibility is expected to be zero, with Environment Canada warning that travel at times will be "impossible."

Montreal's transit agency also advised passengers that heavy snow would also make it impossible for wheelchair ramps to be lowered in some locations.

Flights cancelled

That storm has already hit much of the eastern coast of the United States, and as a result is cancelling flights in and out of Montreal.

Flights to and from New York, Washington D.C., Newark and Detroit, among other locations, were cancelled on Thursday and Friday, while flights from other areas affected by the storm are seeing delays.

Aeroports de Montreal is advising passengers to double-check their flights before heading to the airport.

When the storm hits Atlantic Canada it will bring up to 65 mm of rain to Nova Scotia and 35 cm of snow to New Brunswick.

Newfoundland could see 25 cm of snow before it changes to rain.