Tens of thousands of Ontarians went without power on Saturday as an ice storm pummeled parts of the province and threatened to hit even more .
A map from Hydro One, the provincial utility, showed more than 50,000 customers were in the dark Saturday afternoon because of outages concentrated in cottage country, from Tobermory and Gravenhurst to Peterborough and Kawartha Lakes.
Lakeland Power reported nearly 1,500 homes and businesses without power in sections of Bracebridge on Saturday afternoon. More than 11,000 customers in Barrie were without power over the dinner hour.
The outages came after Environment Canada issued freezing rain warnings for swaths of Ontario and Quebec, starting on the northwestern shore of Lake Huron, extending as far south as Burlington, Ont., and as far east as Lac Megantic, Que.
Hydro One said crews were out in force to turn the lights back on.
By Saturday afternoon, people had started sharing images on social media of trees coated in ice and downed power lines.
Environment Canada was only predicting up to four millimetres of ice build-up in Toronto, but in Orillia, the national forecaster said up to 25 millimetres of ice could accumulate. In Barrie, the ice accretion could reach 10 millimetres.
Barrie, Orillia, Simcoe County, Muskoka, Parry Sound, and most of cottage country are under a freezing rain warning. There is also a rainfall warning for the Barrie and Collingwood area, with up to 25-50 mm of rain this weekend.
Forecasters say the ground is frozen and it will have little ability to absorb the water.
Police advised against unnecessary travel over the weekend, saying the roads would likely be slippery.
Parts of southern Ontario have already been hit, but the storm is due to expand over the weekend.
It was also expected to be a stormy weekend in Quebec, where the southern part of the province is forecast to receive between five and 15 centimetres of snow into Saturday morning before freezing rain follows on Sunday for several hours.
Environment Canada also issued a special weather statement for a large swath of the province including the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, the lower St. Lawrence, the Gaspé peninsula and the province’s north shore, where snow and freezing rain could last into Monday morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 29, 2025.
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