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MONTREAL — Roughly 35,000 clients were without power in Ontario and Quebec on Friday afternoon after severe thunderstorms swept across Central Canada, which was already dealing with sweltering temperatures.
At the peak of the outages more than 214,000 customers were knocked off the grid in Ontario and nearly 140,000 customers were without power in Quebec, Environment Canada said.
Hydro One, Ontario’s power utility, said crews were working “as safely and quickly as possible” to fix service to over 17,000 customers after several rounds of thunderstorms since Canada Day.
While in Quebec, Audrey St-Pierre, spokesperson for Quebec’s hydro utility, said about 200 teams of workers had been dispatched to restore service to more than 18,000 clients.
St-Pierre said Hydro-Québec expected power to be restored to most areas by 11 p.m. ”However, we remain cautious because our teams still need to assess the damage in certain areas, so the delays may be extended,” she added.
The Lanaudière region, north of Montreal, was the most affected in Quebec as of Friday afternoon, with nearly 9,000 customers without power.
Claude Deschuymer, director of the fire department in Blainville, Que., a city north of Montreal, said firefighters responded to 60 calls related to the storm from 6:15 p.m. to 11 p.m. Thursday.
”We had people trapped in elevators because of the power outage and branches that had fallen onto roads,” he said, adding that the city in the Laurentians had dispatched four public works teams to help remove fallen tree branches.
Environment Canada said strong winds accompanying the thunderstorms uprooted many trees across Ontario and southern Quebec, knocking down power lines.
According to the agency, the strongest wind gust in Quebec reached 119 kilometres per hour near lake Saint-Pierre, situated southwest of Trois-Rivières. The Montréal-Trudeau International Airport recorded wind gusts of 96 km/h.
Thursday’s storms were accompanied by record-setting temperatures in Ontario. Oshawa’s airport recorded a high of 35.2 C, beating a record set in 1931 of 33.9 C. Toronto Pearson Airport saw 36 C with a peak humidex value near 48, another record for July 1, the weather agency said.
Parts of southern Quebec including Montreal have been under heat warnings since earlier this week.
Joanie Bellemare lives in L’Assomption, in the Lanaudière region. She said her power went out Thursday around 5 p.m. ”It was a bit unbearable not to have power with the heat during the night,” she added.
Sylvie Ducharme from Brossard said her power came back around midday on Friday, but she was ”happy about the rain (Thursday) night, it freshened the air.”
In Montreal, Friday’s high was expected to hit 32 C with a humidex value of 39. Temperatures were expected to cool slightly for the weekend and reach 28 C on Saturday and Sunday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2026.
Charlotte Glorieux, The Canadian Press
