The heat wave continues Friday in Quebec and southeastern Ontario, with temperatures expected to reach nearly 31 Celsius in some areas. Thousands of homes were also still without power this morning following severe thunderstorms the previous day.
Around noon Friday, more than 30,000 Hydro-Québec customers were still without power due to the aftermath of the thunderstorms. The Laurentians, Lanaudière, and Laval remained the hardest-hit regions. Earlier in the morning, over 50,000 households were affected.
In a statement to CityNews, Hydro-Québec spokesperson Audrey St-Pierre said that at its peak around 9 p.m. Thursday, more than 137,000 customers in the province were without power.
“Outages were caused primarily by strong wind and lightning,” St-Pierre added.
In Montreal, an outage began Friday morning in Côte-Saint-Luc affecting over 2,000 customers and crews were working to assess the situation and restore service, according to the utility provider.
Hydro-Québec reported on its website that “weather conditions may have caused power lines to fall in certain areas” and is asking people not to touch the lines and to keep their distance, as they may still be live even when on the ground.
“If you see downed power lines, call 911 to have the area secured,” the state-owned utility urges.
In Ontario, Hydro One also reported that tens of thousands of its customers were without power on Friday morning.
The heat wave that began on Wednesday continued to affect Ontario and Quebec on Friday, as well as parts of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Environment Canada issued yellow heat advisories for these regions.
Weekend forecast
In southern Quebec, temperatures are expected to rise above 30 C again on Friday, with a heat index of nearly 40.
Environment Canada reports that temperatures and humidity will begin to drop starting Saturday morning.
In Montreal, Friday morning will be gusty with winds of up to 40 km/h. The day will be sunny with a high of 32 C and a low of 21 C. There is a 30 per cent chance of showers and a risk of thunderstorm later in the afternoon and evening.
Saturday will be mainly sunny with a high of 28 C and a humidex of 30, while night time temperatures will dip below 20 to 18 C as clouds roll in.
Sunday is forecast to be cloudy with a high of 28 C and a low of 19 C.
A boy cools off at a water play area in Montreal on Thursday, July 2, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
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