Happy first day of spring! Montreal is getting heavy snow & a special weather statement

Spring officially arrives today, and Montreal is celebrating the only way it knows how: with snowfall, slippery roads, and a special weather statement from Environment Canada.

The statement, issued early Friday morning, warns of reduced visibility due to snowfall rates of up to 2 cm per hour, affecting Montreal along with Outaouais, the Laurentians, Montérégie, and the Eastern Townships. The heavy snow is expected to spread from west to east through the morning before tapering off by 5 p.m.

For the island of Montreal specifically, Environment Canada is calling for snow to begin near noon, with local accumulations around 5 cm. Winds will pick up from the northeast at around 20 km/h by midday, and the high will sit at -2°C with a wind chill near -9°C. If you need to be out on the roads today, check conditions before you leave.

As it turns out, none of this should come as a surprise. Back in February, MétéoMédia released a spring forecast warning that the cold, drawn-out winter wasn’t going anywhere fast. Meteorologist Patrick Duplessis put it bluntly at the time: “We could get caught off guard with brief stretches of late-spring-like weather, even as early as April. But these won’t last long. They’ll be more like false hopes of something a bit more summer-like settling in.”

So far, that forecast is looking pretty accurate.

MétéoMédia also noted that southern Quebec typically sees another 50 cm of snow after winter officially ends, and that active storm systems tracking up from the Gulf of Mexico through the Great Lakes were expected to keep precipitation above normal through much of the spring. Today’s special weather statement fits neatly into that picture.

The good news is that Saturday looks more like what spring is supposed to feel like, with clearing skies and a high of +4°C. The bad news is that’s pretty much it for nice weather in the near future.

Snow returns Saturday night, and the forecast for Sunday through Monday is a fairly relentless rotation of flurries and snowfall, with highs hovering around zero or below. Tuesday offers a brief reprieve with sunny skies and +3°C, but Wednesday and Thursday bring more chances of flurries before the week is out.

So yes, spring is technically here. At least, the calendar says so.