Storm Batters Canada, leaving thousands without power

Every province and territory in Canada issued an emergency weather warning on Saturday, as wintry weather left thousands without power, grounded hundreds of flights and caused the pile-up of dozens of cars on a highway in Ontario.

Even Canadians accustomed to the cold and vagaries of arctic weather systems found themselves battling a long list of conditions extremes which, in addition to heavy snowfall and hypothermic temperatures, also included storm surges, freezing fog, high winds, and so-called ice bombs. David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada, the national weather agency.

"There were thousands of power outages and the impact was all over the period busiest trip of the year,” Phillips said. Wind chill readings, he said, dropped to minus 50 degrees Celsius, or about minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit. he added, "freezes flesh in minutes".

Image Travelers wait at Montreal's Pierre-Elliott Trudeau International Airport on Friday.Hundreds of air travelers have had their vacation plans upended as flights across Canada have been canceled, part of the same system that plagues much of it of the United States, which has disrupted travel and Christmas celebrations and plunged cities across the country in record cold. The United States recorded at least a dozen deaths on Saturday and at one point more than 1.5 million homes were without power.

In Canada, more more than 500,000 homes remained without power as of Saturday morning, according to poweroutage.com, an online data collector. Eastern Canada, particularly Quebec, was the hardest hit, accounting for nearly 70% of outages. In Sept-Rivières, a po...